I’ve been wondering what it would be like to never have had a brain injury?
I understand why I’m wondering this, especially after my last story about having the ability to travel back in time and prevent my brain injury from happening and asking would I do it if I could?
The truth is, there are days I’m not sure I want to get out of bed, and it’s not because of a lack of motivation or any kind of depression, I don’t think. It’s because sometimes it can be difficult living with the after effects that come from a brain injury. After effects like soreness in my left side from the paralysis or the common headaches from my double vision and Shunts. It’s not easy and I’m aware of that, but the truth is life isn’t easy whether you had a brain injury or not.
So what does that mean?
It means life is tough for everyone and maybe for us brain injury survivors, it’s a bit more challenging. And that’s okay because we can live up to the fight because we’re built to survive!
My motivation has never been lacking and I’ve always been one to put forward a strong fight, but today when it’s dark, cloudy and rainy outside I can’t help but wonder what my life would be like with out a brain injury?
It took me several years after my brain injury before I could dream and I’m happy to say I now remember most of my dreams, but I wish just for one night I dreamed what it would be like to live without a brain injury and disability.
Do you ever have that dream?
As I understand it, most of our dreams are forgotten when we wake up, on average I think it’s about 80%, I often only remember the emotion of a dream, rather than what happened in it. Usually, I wake up scared, forget why, pretty quickly, but the emotion stays.
I have often wished I was not disabled (I know that’s not the same as having a brain injury, but it is the closest comparison I have) but I have never had a dream of what that would be like. Maybe as I have knowledge of this, as I have always been disabled so cannot dream about even if I wanted to.
I’m not sure if I really want to have a dream about what it would be like not to be disabled. As I don’t know if I’d want a taste of what could never happen, I worry that would make reality harder to live with. But I don’t suppose I could say that I did or did not want until after it happened. Maybe one day I’ll be able to answer that question.
I hope you get your dream soon.
Sending love x
That’s a great perspective!
On 06/20/89 I was in a bad car accident and got a severe TBI. While receiving a large number of deficits that I either had to overcome or adjust my life to deal with one very important thing that is against the perspective of the rehab and medical industries, I had a TBI, not have, but had. They want to put us in a box away from normal people forever. I am not sure whether they are prejudice of us because they are afraid of what we survived, or they just want to keep us where they can call us patience (customers?). They just want us to stay Traumatic Brain Injuries forever! To stay like we were when the waking began? What about the achievements I have made since then, and become way more a person academically and socially? They said I wouldn’t ever even pass one course in a community college and I am just weeks from qualifying to register for a coaching certification in graduate school? And they repeatedly told my girlfriend to leave me for her sake. We are married and have an 11 year old and a 17 year old. I may have been able to do more pre-injury, but I was not very educated and had no family. It is in my book, Being-Here : “Life and living after surviving your Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)”. Why would I want to go back there? No thank you.
That’s incredible! Thank you for sharing!