It is easy for people with TBI and their families to become discouraged or depressed at what seems like a very slow rate of recovery. But a bruised brain needs time to heal.
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It's very easy to become discouraged,
to become depressed at the speed of recovery after brain injury,
whether it's mild, moderate, or severe.
You cannot see this injury,
and the more mild, so to speak, which is not mild--
In other words, if you're not left with a physical disability
and you look terrific, people are very apt to say, "What's wrong with you?"
"Get a life. Move on."
People who know you well--your family, your close friends, your employer,
your coworkers--may know that you are not quite the person you were prior to that event.
They all have to be educated and informed,
and, most of all, the individual needs to be informed
that this is a slow recovery and to seek help.
You can't do this alone.
But it's not a broken bone that will heal in a matter of weeks.
It's a bruised brain that takes a long time to heal.
And the more severe, the longer the time.
Produced by Krystal Klingenberg, Justin Rhodes, and Jared Schaubert, BrainLine.
Marilyn Spivack,
Marilyn Price Spivack is the neurotrauma outreach coordinator at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston. She is the co-founder and past president of the National Head Injury Foundation, now known as the Brain Injury Association of America. Her daughter, Deborah, sustained a severe traumatic brain injury in a car crash in 1975 when she was 15 years old.
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Bravo Marilyn Spivak from Marilyn Gelman (mTBI 1994/8.)...especially for commenting on what happens to people, especially with "mild" TBI who look fine but who are not. I hope the person who commented on a video in last month's online paper sees this video--the person was discouraged and was feeling like he/she was crazy. I did too until I lucked into a large enough group of folks with TBI that even folks like me were represented. So many people with mTBI have said to me that they wished there was a group just for us...because we have to educate so many segments of society when we feel less able to do so. And because it seems that our civil rights get trampled just when we need cognitive ramps for the cognitive barriers (my terms)we face in trying to participate in our communities post TBI.
Oct 11th, 2012 11:02am