I was on an online brain injury support group, and we were talking about our preinjury selves. Honestly, I didn’t remember a lot of my preinjury personality. What I remember is that I used to yell when I was frustrated, and I never liked that about myself.
Greg says my temperament is different now. As a survivor of brain injury, I am very quick to become frustrated! I anger easily and have sudden angry outbursts that I couldn’t seem to control. I am now on a medication for that which works most of the time, and my family is very grateful for that. Everything I do takes me so much longer, I am often obsessive over things, and another big difference is that I am not as independent as I used to be.
I was registering to be on an upcoming Podcast, and writing a bio was required. As I wrote a list of all I wanted to include, I was comparing myself- Old to New, PRE to POST.
I reread what I had written in my Bio, which I shared in a recent blog titled, Let Me Re introduce Myself. What I noticed about what I wrote about my successes besides how I have cared for my family, is that beyond my deficits, my determination, motivation, and persistence to achieve is here again. I put my heart and soul into everything I do. My love is in helping others, but I forgot about myself for a while.
You need to know, with all the changes that have taken place from my brain injury, it has taken many years to find these similarities again. It seems they did not exist again for years while my brain was healing and creating new pathways to work again.
We need to remember, our deficits are not all of who we are, and it can literally take years to find out who that is again.
Please give yourself time and grace. I have come to many realizations pretty late in the game, 17 yrs post injury. I think that is because I spent many years only focusing on Veronica. Although it has taken me more time than it may take others, I am grateful that I have come to these awarenesses at all.
A Miracle a Day, One Day at a Time: Hope After Traumatic Brain Injury
Dawn Corbelli 