So many of us need counselling. We need someone to talk to that can help us make sense of our thoughts.
I am Dawn’s daughter, and having this severe traumatic brain injury makes living life a whole lot more difficult. I know. I am really hoping that each one of us finds our purpose.
I will be 34 in May, and I am in therapy. My therapist also has a brain injury, but she acquired it from a sickness/illness. What I like about going to her is that she understands my quirks quite well. This therapist doesn’t look at my family like we have extra eyes. As of late, I have been learning how to handle the abundance of feelings I have been getting while getting to know a new “friend”- a man.
It is very hard for me to not obsess over this new relationship. I do things like text him a million times a day, with no response. Last night was not that good for me. My mind was going a million miles a minute. I will elaborate on how she is teaching me to control these behaviors. I have been journaling about things going on that I am having trouble letting go of. We are also doing EMDR, which mom has written about previously.
RECAP: EMDR is a psychotherapy that helps heal people from trauma and distressing life experiences by processing difficult memories. It reduces the emotional impact of traumatic memories, leading to reduced PTSD symptoms, anxiety, and depression. (RESOURCE: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) TX Tech University Health Sciences Center)
This is Dawn now speaking: Veronica has shared with me the trauma she has experienced from losing so many people in her life after her brain injury. For so long, many years, I was never made aware of the hurt it caused her. Here we are, 18 years post injury, and she was recently diagnosed with having PTSD from it. Many of the relationships she has and makes are highly affected by these losses.
When Veronica and a man try to begin a relationship, one of three things happens. Either they walk away due to unfiltered, impulsive sexual comments, run the other way when they hear how complicated her story is, or they begin a relationship. Veronica starts out strong, seemingly “UNINJURED”. But soon her mind begins to obsess and perseverate, and she starts to hold on too tight. It is all she can think about. If they contact her back, she becomes so hopeful that this is the one and only for her. She texts at all hours of the day and night, she assumes they are angry at her when there is no answer, but that doesn’t stop her from reaching out over and over, until eventually the answer is “STOP TEXTING ME”. or “I DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO BLOCK YOU.”
Veronica’s voice… Pre-accident I was literally so well rounded. When your brain gets impacted by an almost 3,000-pound vehicle nothing is the same. Saying that, I am also working through my feelings about forgetting daily and losing memories I am unable to hold onto. I tell anyone getting ready to date me, I am the real-life version of Drew Barrymore in “50 First Dates.”
My vision for my life went from wanting to be a mom of 4, and a wife. Independent, working, earning money, except life takes place, and now I have all these emotions going every which way, and I don’t know how EMDR is helping with this version of my life. I sure do have a long ways to go in this healing process and I am seeing progress. I am also seeing that this healing process is going to take a very long time. Just like everything that comes along this brain injury life. I am just glad I am here to try and become a better version of myself every day.
If you are interested in being brain injury educated and learning about the first 12 years of our journey, please read my book titled,
A Miracle a Day, One Day at a Time: Hope After Traumatic Brain Injury
It can be purchased on Bookbaby Bookshop right here on my website.
It is so interesting to me how Veronica writes yet sounds so different from her writing when she talks. Does that happen to any of you?
Dawn Corbelli 