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

All of these wonderfully helpful and relieving  comments from people who live with TBI are comforting to me in that I now know why I have these "all over the place" feelings.  Forty eight years ago I was assaulted with a shovel handle that was broken over my head.  Back in 1966 when you went to the emergency room, they took an x-ray and if you didn't have a fractured skull, they sent you home.  Still in High School, I found I couldn't read anymore. Oh, I could read the words alright....but by the time I got to the fourth or fifth word it the sentence....I had already forgotten what the first  word was.  Sound familiar anyone?  My life has been tough.  My wife and children's life even tougher.  It eats at me.  Not until the NFL players started telling their stories of forgetfulness, rage, poor decision making, emotional  rollercoastering, continual depression, alcohol or drug use for relief, etc., did I finally make the connection.  I just knew there was something more going on than just being reckless in my behavior.  Although that's a great sign that you are in the loop.  Crying easily is another good one.  I could always cry at the tip of a hat!  I could cry from a tragic scenario to a 16 year old prodigy singing on American Idol.  I've always been kind of a mess upstairs.  More than a few broken toys in the attic! I could never figure out what it was. The bad feelings about myself from all of these years of this stuff is what really brings me to the bottom and ultimately to the brink. That's where the rage comes from.  Gives a whole new meaning to the word frustrated, am I right?  Suicide was always just a thought I would blow off because I probably leaned toward hope.  Hope that things would get better somehow change and everything would work out and be ok.  Besides, suicide was a thing that other people did, not me. Not until I was so painted in a corner that it made absolutely perfect sense to go that route and free the one's in my family the burden having me to deal with on a daily basis.  Thankfully the pills didn't work the way I planned but look what I did and how far it got.  How did it get like this...how did all of this happen.  I now know how and why it's the way it is.  It's the traumatic and or chronic brain injury that makes it what it is. Now the big question...Can anything be done to fix it?  It's always good to talk about it, I guess.  That seems to work, sometimes.  I really don't know the answer.  One thing I do know.  At least I do know now what it is.  I think we must all blaze our own trail to finding ways that works the best for us because we are all so unique with our symptoms from this.  It's very early in the game with recognition of all the effects from brain injury. I'm glad about the breakthrough with the NFL bringing to light the after effects from injury.  I'm hopeful the future generations of people to come with this infliction will benefit from the studies and science to make better the silent side effects from the trauma that we now, today, try to endure on a daily basis. You folks who are on this site because you are looking for answers, don't give up on yourself like I almost did.  Keep trying, keep hoping, do the leg work and try to continually find some help somewhere, anywhere.  If it doesn't work, try something else.  Just keep trying.  Who knows, we might get lucky and finally find some peace. We are all in this together as a small group of warriors. It gives me some kind of good feeling from not being alone in this, that gives me some kind of a power that I can finally be heard on how and why I feel the way I do. Good luck to you my comrades. My thoughts are with you. Share your valuable thoughts and feelings with the rest of us.  We can learn so much from each other about things we thought were only our misgivings. Jump in the boat and grab an oar.  We are all most certainly in this together.  Hang tough, smile when you sometimes don't even feel like it. Stick with the things that make you happy or give you peace. May the force be with you.  Rick, Jersey Shore.  P.S. It made me feel good to write this!  See, some things do work.

I ws in a car accident last year.  ONE of the things that hapened is that my head swelled up, giving me SEVERE headaches.  My forehead hurts, as well as the back of my head.  It feels like a band around my head.  A MRI was done, and an angio of my head and neck with and without dye.  I am told that I did not bleed; however, I still experience the same pressure. The headaches are relentless.This is an emotional rollercoster. My family does not understand. I have done some strange social things.  I'm not social. And I cry easily.

There is no need in writing things down to remember..because I forget to remember I wrote them down..it totally leaves my mind once its done :'(

I can only share with both victims and family members to be optimistic.  As TBI victims we are incredibly fragile but strong and resilient as well.  I suffered a severe TBI in August of 2012.  I tell others part of me died that day, but other parts of me flourished.  Family and survivors stay strong and stay determined.  Time helps victims like I but patience and understanding does as well!

A gift in disguise...I got a new fulfilling life, one that I embrace with love and acceptance.  It took me many years to see it this way.  

It,s harder than it looks, I,M on a Mountain right now, it,s a challenge, i,m going well, but its just the base of the Mountain, I climb higher,it gets more difficult, BUT I cannot get off this MOUNTAIN. ever...

like the whole world is comprised of window dressing (I think that's the right term, a real term - the old me would know). i see a store, a house, a drawer, a book and from the outside they appear perfectly normal; But when I open the door to the house or the store, there's nothing inside.  When I open a book, the pages are blank.  When I open a drawer, it's empty.  Everything serves as  a prop in the one woman play for which I never auditioned.

The past 27 plus months of my life have been about dealing with people who have amazing complexes, and they can only obtain parity by taking advantage of someone else.

like running backwards up a sand-dune. To carry out the most basic tasks requires SO much more effort & energy than pre-mTBI. As my Specialist states, 'there's nothing MILD about an mTBI...' Of course, I look the same on the outside as I did before the assault & pre-mTBI so everybody expects me to function as I did before.

A Nightmare! Almost 14 years since the car crash that I had survived, 7/15 on the Glasgow Comma Scale... lucky boy! I had a mental brake down 2 years ago and life has been hard, everyday is some kind of struggle. Stressed, memory problems, flashbacks, emotional, depression, anxiety, fear of life and no longer wanting to be here. Lost Mum 8 weeks ago so that is a hard time also...

more reason to develop resillience, persistence, fierce self confidence AND humility. because guess whats there if you don't build that boat for yourself? a world that doesn't understand you, might even tell you you're making it up, and expects you to accomplish X Y and Z because you look fine. TBI is being dropped in a pool and told to learn how to float, then to swim.
 

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