Thinking Outside the Skull

I don’t think I have been honest with myself when it comes to how my brain injury has affected me. Ever since it happened, I’ve attempted to push it aside or “be better than it” or minimize its effect. And overall that has been easy to do. Nobody can call me on it because it is on the INSIDE. They can’t see how I feel. Just as I can’t see how you feel.

There were times where the frustration roiled from within. The dizziness I didn’t speak of. The frequent loss of balance from something as simple as bending over to tie my shoe. The constant need to take notes, lest I forget what I needed to remember. These still happen daily. But that was nothing compared to the despair I had early on, wondering if life would ever just get better once I came to grips that the “old normal” was a memory like the old 35W bridge itself. There were times where I considered going back to the new bridge and just jumping off – finishing the job as it was supposed to have happened. I’ve never told anyone that. I didn’t want to believe my own thoughts.

The brain is this amazing, marvelous, brilliant yet fragile thing we take for granted. We ride bikes and motorcycles without helmets and don’t give it a passing thought. Our teenagers play tackle football because it’s a sport and their friends do it. When we injure our brain cells, new ones don’t replace them; the brain must find a way to reprocess or we just “can’t” anymore.

My healing journey isn’t over. I feel the itch to do more to help myself and others understand what we with TBI are going through. It’s this terrible, awful thing that those on the outside of our skulls simply can’t grasp the totality of.