Why Does Everything Seem So Surreal After Brain Injury?

Here goes again I commented and the purpose was to share my story of feeling as if in a square box imagine 4x4’ sq and 6’ tall
I am 265 and 5’10” life has been hell I am socially a mess and drained mentally even with 4-5 days therapy and no one seems to be concerned except me . But below is an inside of my story I didn’t add the part about feeling I was living outside body experiences as well intact so much goes through my head I can’t type it all . But I sent to on another site in response to a guy’s story he has found joy in life again. I feel the opposite

I first noticed I had a brain csf leak 1/1/2015

No one believed Mr even my wife so I kept working as a trucker with severe headaches from a real stiff neck. Once Covid hit things got worse I didn’t wanna socialize let alone get out of bed finally had test confirmation btw attempted lasting 11/2017 . Gotbsaved 12/2017 but continued working until Feb 2020. Sorry if I bounced around this is normal now days for me . So testing started sometime in December 2020 2 months after they found my right optic nerve had a sac of CSF around it and vision went from 20/20 to 20/100 then was bilateral so the nouroptomolgist sent me to see a neurosurgeon and that surgeon referred me to another because it was out of his scope of operation. For one in Louisville and he and a ENT performed skull based endoscopy csf repair 3/23/21. Spent 7 days in icu sent home . Started feeling a little better but vision issues continued so I seen another neurosurgeon that did an angio gram brain pressure 26.8 at opening. 2 days later sept 1 2021 a stent was placed in my right ventricle sinus stat. Another day in icu. Eye started clearing up I tried returning to work in November and by January 2022 I had a couple spells of blacking out but not fainting. Went to ER imaging showed stent clear and nothing more . I kept telling them I know something is wrong doctors and my wife family all didn’t believe me . They would do a Ct and say all good. Well it got back to me being in bed non stop due to severe headaches and again finally I talked the neurosurgeon into ordering a cisternogram and Ct and MRI. I was correct the repair on may 23 21 failed and intact ruptured was leaking real bad. At this point depression anxiety you name it set in on top of terrible whole body pain. They ordered a bifrontal craniotomy csf repair 11/9/2022 i was freaking out about my head being opened . Went through it and I don’t remember anything from the time I walked into the hospital up until maybe 3 months ago. They also put a LP shunt in on 11/15/2022 12 days in icu. I have felt different since all this and still continue to. Even had a CT scan show encephalomalacia and some other things . My doctor has not even talked to me about it and told my wife it may have been caused during surgery. I also have lumps on my temples now that hardened and are not normal. Had a mri wand without contrast. Same radiologist read it didn’t mention the brain damage but noted the mri was added as part of CT maybe that’s why he didn’t mention it. So since I’ve been dizzy have a racing mind forget everything and get extremely frustrated at myself. I feel like a shell of the old me . I also have serious social issues and anxiety worse than ever . I sleep very long wife seems agitated at me all the time and I feel hopeless helpless and like I have no value to contribute to the world anymore. I know God loves me and is here for me. But the feeling of things worsening is on going even with therapy . I see the surgeon again in December 13 months post craniotomy. I have a lot of nerve damage issues as well and feel like I am being pushed aside and like they think I am making it up . Cervical spine and spine show moderate to severe nerve compression and that was back in 7/2022 . Nothing mentioned by anyone . Thanks for your story and I wanted to share mine as well. I am not suicidal in any way. I can say there are times I wish I didn’t wake from the last brain surgery. Have a blessed day

I suffered an aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH stroke) in my cerebellum by my brain stem 18 months ago. In the weeks that followed in the ICU, I had significant delusions and false memories. While that has subsided, I have since had recurrent bouts of DP/DR. I’ve described it as “otherworldly” and feeling “untethered”. It feels like being a spectator on the outside looking in. Sometimes I have the strong sensation of being in another place and time, yet familiar (like from my childhood). I’ve gone as far as to ask my bf to pinch me to prove I’m still here and didn’t die and kept hanging around. It’s a very eerie feeling. I’ve heard people talk about seeing their life flash before their eyes. This is different. It feels more like my soul or my spirit has left and taken a tour of past times and places. Like I’m here but not here. Intellectually, I know it’s not real, but it feels so weird. Anything can trigger it, but mostly it’s the weather outside or music that does it. So much so that so avoid listening to music and keep the window shades drawn.

I was I a car accident, no I don’t remember it, before or after it happened. This is years later and still my memory only saves moments at a time. I can’t read books anymore, I can’t crochet anymore, I can’t do any of my old hobbies. You would think I would be depressed but it seems like I have like a numb brain. It is happy just to sit there in its half working stare with no ability to feel and no ability to think and my brain is ok with this. Go figure!!! So basically I don’t remember most of my life, don’t remember how to do most things, lost a 35 year career, no one in my life understands and for some reason my brain is numb enough not to understand and be ok with this. That is how a TBI affects

I suffered a spinal injury as a kid playing basketball. Knee to my lower back as I was coming down from a rebound and my body went numb and hit the ground. Head too and instantly blacked out. I don’t remember hardly anything about my childhood, possibly related. Not even sure how old I was when this happened. Don’t even remember being in an ambulance and the hospital stay. I do remember always comparing life to a movie or dream and that nothing seemed real.

Only as an adult have I started noticing the complications of this persistent disassociated state. From mood swings, to irrational decisions, to interactions with people being shallow and others not seeming real. Partly because it’s almost like I forget that I’m even looking at another human being.

It’s like my memory is so fragmented. My experiences of life are compartmentalized and only accessible depending on my “state of mind.” Lots of back problems growing up. Lots of behavioral problems. I never considered that the injury could have caused some significant change and it was never discussed with me. I just correlated it all to stress at home.

There’s times when I feel like completely different people because I guess my brain has problems correlating specific experiences in the moment with my entire self as a whole. Past and present.

Good write life is a darn move, but it is your life.

Great article and something I have experienced following a head injury last year with intracranial hypotension and a subdural haematoma. The surreal nature of recovery is quite unusual. As a musician I have used it within the creative process to write songs inspired by my slightly altered reality. I'm lucky.

Brain surgery... for 14 years I “felt” like I was watching myself in a movie everyday. No one believed me.. drs thought I was nuts.. ‘Cause their surgery went perfect’ lol It was bizzaro world and very frightening. I eventually lived on anxiety, checked myself into psych hospitals cause I thought I was nuts.
Then one day.. literally walked out of grocery store and it’s like I just stepped back into my body before surgery.
It was strange and wonderful, I cried. I was me, again.

Years ago my Doctors didnt believe me when I told them I felt like I was having outer body experiences. Like I was watching myself. When I had flooding before It was called flooding I could hear myself crying, speaking, or yelling but it wasn't me. Like I was watching this person control all my emotions and I had no control. It was scary. I was told a few years ago, I had what they call a "deep" head injury.
I went head 1st through the side door window of a car- opening the window with my head on impact from the other car. She was going estimated 55mph. We were stopped. I was in the back seat, exactly where she hit. My head was split open in the front as my body, in shock landed on the sidewalk with the back of my head banging up against the corner of the side walk.
When I woke in the hospital I knew I had parents but couldn't remember what they looked liked. My sisters and brothers - I felt like I didnt really know who these people were.
My mother and I well it was just awful. I thought she was just mean and she thought I was being a brat.
I was having trouble hearing and everything sounded muffled.
I struggled to understand what people were saying. If I said I didnt hear or understand and asked... I was told I was a liar and got punished. My thoughts all came right out my mouth - I had no control over it. My music was to loud for my mom. She would lower it and I couldn't hear it. She would disagree and become very angry and fustrated with me. This was on going.
Eventually they took me to get my ears checked and sure enough my ear drum was barely reactive. I couldn't understand what the tester was saying because she covered her mouth.
I pushed myself to get better and go back to school. I was lost - very lost. In a chronic state of confusion. I actually couldn't really understand much. I would be in the halls feeling like I was watching myself -watching everyone around me. This happened for several years after my TBI. 1985

very helpful to read, 20 years in from multiple concussions over a small span of time, I often say to family members I feel like Im outside looking in, viewing a world in technicolour, and as a joke flicking the lightswitch here in my house but turning the light on in the room 3 houses down ..... I kinda am getting better at dealing with it and it comes and goes, but anxiety always seems to lie there just under the surface.... keep up the good fight people, you are not alone ....

Hi, 4 months ago I was in a car accident. I never went to the hospital for a tbi or concussion diagnosis, but I know I have something. After the accident I developed a panic disorder because I didn’t feel like I was me. I felt like a different person in the same body and this feeling gave me daily panic attacks. Also, something really weird happened, my social anxiety I had before the accident disappeared. I used to be able to watch scary movies. Now I get so anxious I feel as if I’m a character in the movie, which also leads to panic attacks. Everytime I try to go to sleep it’s just me and my thoughts, which often gives me panic attacks. Driving, eating spicy foods, learning new information, even hearing a door creak gives me panic attacks. The weirdest most random things give me panic attacks or make me feel anxious. I’m also constantly sleeping which is harder for me to get to work on time. I feel like my mind is blank, like it doesn’t even exist, it’s not in my head, my head is just empty. The only emotion I feel is anxiety and panic.

I was in an accident October of 2000. I don’t know what happened. I don’t remember anything at all. My injuries did not match where or what I was doing. I lost all memory of my life and people in it. One and a half years later my memory came back due to a drug I had taken. I had some long term issues due to the accident and some short term ones that are thankfully now gone. However, I don’t feel like I’m from here anymore. I don’t mean this area or my hometown. I mean this planet. This is not my home. This body may have started here but who or what’s inside is different. As if a voyager on a far off mission sent here to do what I’m unsure. I am knowledgeable about things I shouldn’t know anything about. I’m am driven by an unexplainable force I cannot stop and yet still have no clue where it’s taking me. What I have learned about this planet is that it is filled of a world full of learned responses blind to the true realities of life and this world. The primitive nature of our existence is just that, primitive and somewhat disappointing. This planet is a vacation destination for the universe. A melting pot of universal species forced to live on the same rock.

What you don’t understand is that I now see they the filters of society and learned behavior. On this planet anything is possible if you know how to do it. Literally anything. We are only confined by our inabilities to see past our own hinderance of imagination and belief that anything is truly possible. We are given a gift to live on this rock. This planet of possibilities. I am here for reasons I have yet to figure out. I walk among you in the masses and yet do not belong.

Life is daily, never forget. Perspective is everything.

I had a high grade TBI 6 years ago from a car accident. Saturday 4 days ago I banged my head hard. I feel like I’m dreaming and don’t have emotional feelings inside right now, but other things feel quite amazing. Like my bath water feels like silk but my close feel awful. I just don’t want to be going backward it took 2.5 years in regard and I’ve just regained my word flow. I’m scared.