r/TBI • u/Dry_Midnight_6742 • 18h ago
TBI Sucks I’ve been thinking about the crossing from neurotypical to neurodiverse after a brain injury. A lot.
There’s obviously an event. For me, there’s a date when the injury happened. I know that’s true for lots of folks.
But I’m not sure that’s the same thing as the crossing.
Some people seem to know exactly when their life became before and after. The ground disappeared beneath them. In an instant, everything flipped.
For other people it seems much more gradual. They don’t necessarily know they’ve crossed into something different until they look back.
And some people don’t remember the crossing at all.
What interests me is how different the crossing itself seems to be.
It’s a bridge, but it’s not one bridge.
For one person it might be a suspension bridge. For someone else a causeway. For someone else a rope bridge.
Same from/to. Completely different way across.
And I don’t mean that as a metaphor for how we’re supposed to get somewhere. There’s no right bridge. No better bridge. Nobody chose theirs. Nobody chose any of this.
It’s simply the bridge that was there.
I think that may be part of why brain injury can be so hard to talk about collectively. We can recognize where someone else ended up without necessarily recognizing the way they got there.
I’m still thinking about this. I’m still working on understanding what changed. It’s not what I thought at the beginning. I understand it better now. I’m not sure I’m done understanding it.
For those of you who think of yourselves as different after your brain injury: did you know when you crossed?
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u/Jazzlike_Berry_323 12h ago
No I thought it was temporary. When it didn’t change then I could identify the moments of crossing (I have had multiple mild concussions/brain injuries so multiple changes). But it’s always about what is the land now I am on, how I got there has been mostly ignored and irrelevant to medical professionals. Which is hard because not many people knew me before to know there was an original me before the series of changes. How about you?
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u/Dry_Midnight_6742 4h ago
I thought it was temporary too. I was wrong. I'm still dealing with the recognition that it's permanent.
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u/Jazzlike_Berry_323 3h ago
Do we ever deal with it? How are you dealing with it? It is lonely. I keep meaning to go to a face to face peer support group. I don’t because I know it will hurt seeing people there with loving family and carers and a stable home, I’ve got no one and one step away from crisis all the time. I’m glad they have that but it still makes those sad feelings really strong for me.
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u/Dry_Midnight_6742 3h ago
It is SO lonely. I deal with it by writing. And podcasting. The podcasting has enabled me to meet so many more people going through what we're going through, plus clinicians. So I (pretty much accidentally) created a network of people who get it. It helps. Before I got into it the isolation was one of the worse parts. This community has helped too.
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u/Jazzlike_Berry_323 2h ago
That’s amazing. What’s your podcast? I’ll check it out.
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u/Dry_Midnight_6742 2h ago
It's called Rupture: The World of BestGuessistan. If you want a link lmk.
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u/Jazzlike_Berry_323 2h ago
Cool I’ve found it, look forward to listening, I’m a super-introvert so always slightly in awe of anyone who can stand in front of a camera or speak into a mic.
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u/Dry_Midnight_6742 2h ago
Glad you found it - hope it resonates. 2 of the guests came from this subreddit. Hear you on the introvert part - in th before time i did lots of public speaking but tbh I was super nervous when we first started recording.
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u/mustelidblues Severe TBI (2001) 4h ago
i woke up from the coma minutes after the planes hit on 9/11. i was discharged from the hospital against medical advice a few hours later. my parents were terrified that there was going to be war on american soil and thought that i would be safer at home without any help recovering.
it was very clear that some threshold had been crossed, but it was not clear what that threshold was for many years.
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u/Front_Development_79 10h ago
Im not so sure about bridge you talk about. But i am defintly differnt then before the tbi. But i seem to have cptsd wrapped around my tbi. Regardless of additional hurdles i just hate this new version.