#traumatic brain injury

[whatthefibromyalgia]

Stroke/Traumatic Brain Injury/Spinal Cord Injury survivor.

Mrs-Q

Anyway, people with brain damage I love you. People who have had strokes I love you, especially if you're told you were "too young" to have one. People who acquired your brain damage by less common means such as infection, lack of oxygen at birth or degenerative disease, I love you. People with moderate and severe brain damage, I love you. People who lost their sight or hearing or ability to speak because of their brain damage, I love you. People who have paralysis from their brain damage, I love you. People with amnesia and severe cognitive issues from their brain damage, I love you. People with rare and unusual symptoms from their brain damage, I love you.

You are not a punchline, you haven't lost your humanity, your thoughts and opinions are as valuable as anyone else's. We deserve respect.

[ID: a dark red banner with the words "This post is about physical disabilities, do not derail." in grey font. Either side of it is a lighter grey wheelchair user symbol with the user leaning forward with the arms raised and back, giving the appearance of wheeling fast. End ID.]

[positivelyqueer]

give love to people with traumatic brain injury, acquired brain injury, stroke, neurological condition, worsening mental health, trauma, PTSD and all other brain based conditions that make you feel conflicted about your identity. About whether or not you’re the ‘same person’ you were before your injury or illness. People constant evolve and change but can be more difficult when changes more sudden, pronounced, and noticed by others. I hope you are doing well and are able to find some peace, support and love.

[chaoticautie]

As someone who is somewhat of a “veteran” of the online ND community, I’m disappointed in the lack of positivity and love for lesser known diverse cognitive conditions, and the opposing abundance of posts about “cures” or outdated criteria or treatments for those conditions. So, without further ado, I want to say hello to anyone with any of the disorders I’m listing, and give them the love and support that hardly anyone else in our community has… Shoutout to:

People with Down syndrome

People with Fragile X

People with William’s syndrome

People with dyslexia

People with dyspraxia

People with dyscalculia

People with dysgraphia

People with Prader-Willi syndrome

People with PANS or PANDAS

People with aphasia

People with a TBI (traumatic brain injury)

People with chronic/early onset mental illnesses

People with cerebral palsy

People with FASD or were otherwise disabled via other substances in utero

And many, many more I may have forgotten to list (but still support and love, I will add more to my list)

You are all beautiful and wonderful, and you all deserve so more love, appreciation, acceptance and support. You are just as neurodiverse as the rest of us, and your voices deserve to be heard and amplified.

I love you all ❤️

[anexperimentallife]

[whatthefibromyalgia]

This made me so emotional. I had no idea after my surgery I would learn that I had a stroke. A Traumatic brain injury, a spinal stroke they call it. Now I can barely remember why I stood up some days. I burn meals because I simply forget I put something in the oven. Sometimes as a Nanny for the last 16 years there are times I can not remember the names of my charges that mean so very much to me. That will break my heart. Like I can see their faces in my mind. I can see clear memories flashing through my brain as memories are triggered int to firing but... The names won't come to me and I break down.

So often through-out the day I hear things like "thats not what you said" or "don't you remember" and I have NO memory, just blankness and sense of confusion that just brings me to tears because I don't understand what is happening.

Mrs-Q

Hey, if you’re not as mentally quick as you used to be because of your illness- that’s okay. If you’re can’t think as fast or handle as many tasks that’s okay. You aren’t stupid, you aren’t unintelligent, and you aren’t less worthy of love or respect. It’s okay that your brain won’t or can’t go back to how it used to be. It’s different now, but it’s okay.

[gayaest]

Jiayi • 19 years old • she/they • TBI

Strabismus • Paraplegia ♿️💚⭐️

[Description in alt-text]

[noagskryf]

Bloody hell i wish i could just drink a cup of water without spilling half of it down myself

And bonus points if ableist fucks didn't laugh about it

[technicolortrenchcoat]

I don't think people without memory loss realize how truly devastating it is and how it changes everything about how you live

They don't realize that the memory loss can be as disabling as to require you to keep a chart of daily activities to check off because you literally cant remember if you did them.

They don't realize that you literally cant graduate from higher education, you cant remember things for long enough.

They don't realize how hard it is to find employment when remembering new instructions is difficult.

They don't realize that you're taking photos and videos and collecting mementos and trinkets and hoarding them because without them the memories literally do not exist for you.

They don't realize that you are grieving every moment that you want to remember, as you are living it, because you know you wont remember it. You know you wont be able to go back to it the way other people can.

They don't realize it even chases you into your sleep. I have the same recurring nightmare every night, and have for years, and it's about losing my memories. Never being able to get them back.

I don't think people without memory loss realize how truly devastating it is and how it changes everything about how you live

even your dreams

[weemietime]

And if you have cortical visual impairments it gets even weirder. I have visual agnosia, which means I have a hard time identifying objects. It is not consistent. Sometimes things just look like a messy clash of nonsense. Sometimes things straight up get deleted from my visual field altogether.

If I have to look for an object in an array I can't distinguish different objects, shit like that. It also fucks with my proprioception, which is my perception of my body in space (this has both a vestibular and visual component).

You can test this by extending your arm all the way out and using your index finger, slowly bring it to touch your nose. If you miss, you have bad proprioception. This is common in learning disabilities like dyacalculia and autism btw.

I can't drive a car for this reason. We tried it, because my doctor was a fucking dumbass who said it would be "fine" because she apparently didn't understand what I meant by visual agnosia, and when I was in driver's ed I nearly killed a woman and her baby in a crosswalk.

Because my visual system straight up just deleted them in front of me. My instructor had to slam on his brakes. So now I walk or take the bus lol. It can be dangerous too, I almost get hit by cars a lot, I once tripped over an open dishwasher door, all kinds of shit. I navigate pretty good though and can compensate really well, I have all kinds of internal tricks to help me. It's not as scary as it sounds because for the most part I can see and understand visual information, it just gets garbled at times.

So, something I learnt the other day. So, you know how dinosaurs supposedly can't see you if you stand still? Well that myth is based on real-life lizards/etc and how eyes in general work. So, once my dad starts infodumping, here comes some other cool information. We, humans, can in fact, also not see something unless it's moving. We fixed this by having our eyes constantly shake. And then our brain compensates for us, so we don't have to have shaky vision.

What if aliens don't have this? Like. What if they find out when one of us was looking at something in the distance, and they walk around this thing that's in front of them, and the alien is confused so they bob their head and oh, there's a thing there, but how did the human know that, and then we explain and they're like, horrified.

Humans are apex predators. They can hunt in packs. They can hunt in pairs. They can hunt on their own. They're persistance predators, which is unheard of. They get stronger when they're mad or scared. They have this thing called 'body language' which acts like a type of hivemind, even if they'll claim it isn't. And. They can see you. When you're not moving. They can still see you. If you ever find yourself in a fight against a human, for whatever reason? Run. Run as fast as you can. And hope, pray if you have a religion, that they won't follow.

[longreads]

What do you do when they tell you that you'll never race again? You run farther than you ever have before. Our latest Atavist Magazine excerpt highlights Todd Barcelona's recovery from a traumatic brain injury.

On the afternoon that changed his life, Todd was driving home from work in his sky blue 1994 GMC Sierra truck. He had purchased it used and lowered the suspension so it sat closer to the ground. It did not have airbags.

Todd approached the intersection of Austin Peay Highway and Old Brownsville Road heading north. A Shell gas station, fields of crops, and stands of trees filled his view. The light ahead turned yellow, and he continued through the intersection. A gray Honda Accord driving south made a left at the light at the same time, failing to yield the right of way. It smashed into Todd’s truck almost head-on.

Visit Longreads to read the full excerpt.

[pr0cyonid]

It took 10 years for a neurologist to finally fix the headaches from my car accident.

10 years to find out that the problem wasn't my break - it was my neck.

10 years to find out I'm hypermobile and dozens of specialists and brain scans were pointless and useless.

I feel like I have my life back, but I can't help feeling like I missed so much time being sick.

[nightmaretour]

"Brain damage" only sounds like a harsh and offensive way to describe brain injuries because people constantly use it as an insult. It's a totally neutral descriptor of what it is. I have brain damage. My brain is damaged. It's not ableist to call it that, it's ableist to call people you don't like brain damaged because you think it's an inherently bad thing to be.

(Yes abled bodied neurodivergents, that includes you)

[s1yeye]

people seem forget nonverbal semiverbal speech unreliable speech loss all can be caused by things not autism outside of autism. kuru i me is not nonverbal semiverbal self, but body have somewhat frequent speech loss, and many alters (like self) speak weird funny or not speak at all. is mostly part of us our schizophrenia and brain damage and ID. we autism autistic too, but autism tend cause more words speak hyperverbal lot lot lots words spill out ramble off, rather than hard to speak hard make sentence hard words or no at all.

this post, want say hello and i see you to others with schizospec or brain damage or ID who not speak or struggle speak some way because of it. you welcome here, is your community too. ^_^

[sweaters-and-silly]

Traumatic brain injuries with memory issues make for great angst fics but I feel like there are funny stories in there too. Like everyone I know, myself included, who has cared for someone with a TBI or stroke or other brain issue has some fucked up but funny story they tell about their person.

But since I have no real time to write a funny Buck memory loss fanfic so here’s a scenario instead!

Scenario: Buck has a tbi and has issues forming short term memories temporarily. (Those pathways can heal, I’ve seen it happen.)

Jee sits with Buck and tells him the same joke multiple times because he laughs every time.

Eddie offering to get Buck a rowing machine (to practice his stroke.)

Chimney puts a doctored photo of Bobby holding Buck as a baby in his hospital room just to see if he notices.

Tommy just keeps showing him pictures of cats he wants to get until Buck starts asking when they’re going to get a cat.

Or the flip side:

Buck keeps calling Connor and asking for things because he has that number memorized from years ago and Connor only has Eddie’s number so he calls Eddie with these request to get him this stuff which turns out is just Buck getting stuff for Chris while they hang out.

Buck delays Tommy from leaving by asking for his kiss goodbye, getting a couple extra kisses because he “forgot” the first few.

Buck keeps asking Maddie to tell him stories about her life because he loves hearing her talk about how happy she finally is. So she indulges him even though he remembers the stories.

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[battleangel]

I cant watch these guys develop CTE anymore…