"Brain Injury Is ..." Brain Injury Defined By People Who Are Living With It

Its a marriage that I never agreed to nor did I ever want its the nagging spouse that makes your good days bad and your bad days worse and will constantly remind you... Baby I will always be here for you...

The writer Larry McMurtry summed it up best for me, "It's like death, only you get to live"

"If only I could turn back time.." thoughts everytime. Jack. Mongolia

 Only survivor. It's being surprised by the words I say sometimes...I'll use a "big" word and think, how did I come up with that? Do I even remember what that word means? I used to know it--pre TBI--but it's usually like a Chinese word to me now. Except it will pop out on my "good" cognition days...and now, post TBI, I can barely remember the word and wonder what overturned file cabinet in my brain just righted itself for a second...(Received my TBI,  when a 10 ton water truck pummeled into our vehicle 30 years ago).

When I disappear for awhile, I like to tell my family and friends I was on vacation. I just don't know where I went or who I went there with. Karen

Amazing and I love who I am now. 100% new me that isnt easy but simple.

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.
Revelation 3:20

Can you tell everyone about me?

IM THE TRUTH AND THE ANSWER TO STOPPING DRINKING AND DRIVING FROM TEENS TO ADULTS!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Feeling like your best is a taste a away but never comes for every one progress another problem comes around.

I just learned my TBI is cause for how I have felt (struggled) for the past 25 years.  No one told me...  until now.  My mind spins.  I think very fast (like brainstorming), and then become exhausted and have great difficulty making decisions.  

Disconnected, isolated, misunderstood, "so close, yet so far away", alternate universe (on the outside, looking in), 2-second delay, apathetic, forget to remember to look at lists I write, forget goals, useless, unworthy, etc...

What I always tell people about my memory since the TBI is: "I am like a computer with a broken processor, the memory is there, the indexing is poor." - Jeffrey B.

it is more frustrating than anything i've done or been through! i'm recovering but so slowly it's depressing

PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME!!  a 23 yr. old living in pittsburgh,PA

Frustrating not remembering even the greatest moments such as the birth of my daughter , starting a conversation and forget what I was talking about somewhere in it , maddening ringing like a gun fired next to my ear . Emotional wreck most of the time , fumbling & stumbling isn't funny , feels like I fell asleep in a rotating dryer , movements require intense concentration , angry alot . I don't look at pictures cause I really don't want to know how I used to be ....it hurts too much . But all in all I'm determined to do some things , it (tbi) took alot but I won't let it have it all. Hit in Feb.2012

I have been living with my brain injury since I was 6 years old when I was hit in the head by the batter and knocked unconscious .  At the age of 19 I fell off a forty foot cliff while fighting a fire in the California Conservation Corp.  When I finally landed in the hospital they said I had a TBI and Hydroencephalitis.  They gave me a VP Shunt to help drain off all the extra fluid on my brain.  Which helped with the headaches.  But it is not a permanent solution and has been repaired or replaced some 14 times.

Remembering who I used to be and not remembering me now.  Frustrated, angry, sad, confused.  More than anything deeply saddened that I don't remember my son growing up.  Thankful that family gave me a camera for pictures of him.  Truly angry that the person that did this to me only got a $100 ticket and I almost died!  So much that I don't remember.  Started writing a book about it but can't remember sequences of things.  Just so frustrating because I can't get the care I need!

VERY FRUSTRATING!!  I can't find words, they're like files all screwed up.  I remember through repetition but nobody's repeating just getting upset!  Had a hard time accepting the new me and letting go of the old me.  I fought hard to get my life back.  I'm now trying to find where I fit in with my limitations.  I'm afraid of the world.  Everyone expects me to be normal.  I don't feel normal whatever that is anymore.  No one relates to  the TBI. They don't relate problems with TBI. I tried working.  Put in 60 hr wks making up.  Burnt out. 

 Bobbie1988

Like being robbed of your identity and purpose in life but every single day you get up and try so hard to be even half of what you were....and Never getting there. 

TBI survival is having your automatic transmission magically changed while you sleep into standard transmission. You start at the beginning learning to shift & clutch in EVERY activity whether drinking water without choking or sitting up in bed. Unlike an infant who, with practice, goes into automatic transmission you are stuck in standard transmission forever

It's like trying to think clearly and live my life

in the middle of a Hurricane

Feeling like Alice, falling down the rabbit hole.

when your computer gets a virus.  Starts acting funny.  It does inexplicable things. 

I'm the wife of a TBI patient.  He was blow up in Iraq.  Seeing him struggle from the outsiders point of view is like watching him stand inside one of those giant snow globs that people put on their lawn at Christmas.  He is standing in the middle and all the little pieces flying around are his memories.  He tried his best to grab and hold on to as many as possible.  But as soon as he reaches out and grabs more the others are lost.  Everyday is a new day.  Or like all our none injured people have memories in folders in order in a filing cabinet.  All his memories are in one folder and out of order and almost impossible to even attempt to fix. 

Thinking and talking through thick gumbo mud, sometimes walls pop up to block the way.

The lights are on and, YES, someone is home, it just takes a little longer to respond. Kat ;)

Sometimes it is hard to believe that something so minor, fast, and random still causes such a disruption to my daily life.  I can function, but the changes are subtle.  I am not the person I was, and my colleagues think I am making it all up. So, I would say, TBI is an injury that can cause incredible self-doubt, which leads to that anxiety...  Which has led me to an even greater compassion to everyone suffering the effects of this invisible injury.  

Feeling like I am looking from the outside in at my life. Moving more slowly and deliberately. Double checking. Questioning old routines. But somehow it is not a sadder place. It is not a stressful place. From my new outside view I just see  areas for improvement in like how I used to react to emotional circumstances.  I just ask myself, with chuckle."Why do you do that?" "Don't do it that anymore". 

Is it weird I am just taking my month or so of recovery from a mild concussion to remodel myself a bit? When I found myself again I saw that me needed a little fixin' up. 

So far, my family doesn't freak out as long as we can talk about what their perceptions and concerns are and I can explain what I am feeling to them. But my not being my "old self" is disorienting to them.