

Brain Injury Is...






When the cursor disappears from your mental computer screen.


An invisible thief.

Devastating. Exhausting. Widely misunderstood.


MIA or AWOL … Missing in Action or Away Without Leaving!



Thinking with speed bumps.





Scrambled egg between my ears.



Forgetfulness and a total personality change.



Unpredictable and extremely misunderstood.


Trying to catch clouds in a windstorm.

Posted on BrainLine August 19, 2013.

Comments (360)














.....like mashed potatoes. 
.....like being in a constant fog.
.....did i already do that?
.....what's your name again?










Life altering...



Sitting and trying to fight back the pain from the headaches and trying to remember what my wife asked me to do for the day. And trying not to loose my temper at those I love . TBI sucks big time but I've gotten used to the painful headaches that I've had for 9 years and only go to the E.R. when the pain stays at 10+ for over 3 days.

Getting up every morning and thinking "here we go again!"

A new day every day all day long. Confusion like my brain needs to be turned on every minute of eveeyday but I have no one button or reset button. Oh the pain just trying to think hurts so much like a bad joke. Having a good loving and caring support system is so helpful since I cannot remember how to drive or take care of myself at age 36

Mourning who you were and accepting who you are now. Relearning things you use to know, and trying to remember things you should never forget. TBI means writting everything down and having constant fatigue and migraines. It's also about... learning to sneeze without feeling like you're're blowing your brains out ;) Most importantly TBI is about counting our blessings and surrounding ourselves with people who understand and can appreciate our unique situations. PEACE & LOVE ~KAR

To me it is knowing what I was, fighting to get it back, losing more of who I was, and then finally trying to forgot my past achievements and instead focus on who I can now become. It is extremely frustrating some days, and then other days I have small windows of time in which I see all the ways that I have been blessed through my injury. It's an emotional rollercoaster and I'm still waiting to see where it goes.

TBI = Life will never be the same...and it does not get any better !

TBI the INVISIBLE injury


as if all the things on the desk get swept off, about every 10 minutes.... or another way to see it: its as if the 'computer's' hard drive overloads and shuts down for a while, like the old window 3.1 if more than one item tries to open at once....   thanks! it just means learning a new way to do just about everything...

Like a Tornado or Cyclone of Emotions then don't remember what was said or did an wonder why Folks getting upset

Like I forgot to do my homework and can't remember how to get home!

I liked the analogy of the puzzle.

My twist on it would be: I am carrying a puzzle box. All the pieces are in there. I trip and the puzzle box goes flying. The pieces scatter. Others come running to help me pick up the puzzle pieces, but we can't find all of them. Most of them, but not all. The puzzle can still be put together more or less intact. The whole puzzle picture is still readily recognizable, but some pieces 'are' missing. It's difficult trying to describe what the few missing pieces mean, to the overall outcome. It's just difficult and there are no - comparators.

Playing hide and seek with most things like; memory, your past, your present, balance, expressing yourself correctly, being coherent...

Trying to dance in a room filled to the ceiling with thick jelly.

A ride you cannot get off.

No taste or smell to trigger any lost memories.

never having an easy day again.Make the challenges enjoyable. They are not going away.

When I pull my car out of driveway and into the road but I don't remember where I'm going.

Like dumping over a giant file cabinet, full of the "files of your life" & then spending the REST of your life trying to put everything back where it was... (sometimes only half ass... cuz that's THE BEST you can do/hope for.)

Like having handcuffs on you brain. Keeps you restricted in your thoughts most times. When you do have a thought or something to say....by the time you try to get it out...the thought is either gone or changed all together. Very frustrating..

I resonate with every one of these statements. But I removed myself as much as possible from the life I had chose to create my own little world that embraced me for the person I became. My new community had no expectations of me to 'get back to normal'.

I love the internet because I get to choose who I interact with. *This is one of my favorite sites.

My Filing system is completely out of whack!

like being betrayed again and again.

TBI may cause memory loss but the one thing that never goes away is how it happened.

A long and strange journey that doesn't seem to have an finish line.


Like reading a book and none of the sentences are finished.

I asked my son this question in order to post of his behalf, his words "I don't know"

Meaning he is not aware that he has Anoxia brain Injury- And that his/our life has forever changed. Its been 11 months now since he was hung, spent the first month in a brain recovery center, 7 months of PT/OT and now its him and I for the long hall. I want him to understand, but yet I don't, he is happier today than he was before all of this. K.B.

Visual issues & headache daily make you long for the old you which now gone. Frustrating!!

My thoughts used to run like lightning now it feels like my thoughts are running through oatmeal!!!