While I was thrilled to see some exposure to the very unreported and misunderstood story of brain injuries, I also was a bit disappointed that staff reporter Julia Keller did not give a better range of what she called “the shadows.”
Of the 1.5 million brain trauma cases, not all end up as the portrayed worst-case scenarios that she witnessed at the rehabilitation institute. There are many of us that never needed to go through this type of rehabilitation and were expected to return to our jobs and be the same people we were before our accidents.
In my case, I was involved in a rear-end collision in August 2001, but to this day I am still trying to get my old self back and have recently realized that she is gone.
I am the walking wounded: I look OK, act OK at work, but something is so different about me. I sleep too much, lack enthusiasm for things I used to do and can have some pretty erratic personality swings. I am now a different person; I am a new Jean, a more withdrawn Jean.
The mourning and acceptance of what happened to me will take time and it has taken its toll. I lost my fiance; I had to step down from a position at work and every day I face the uncertainty of what my life will become as the years go.
It is difficult enough to recover from a visible illness. How would you feel if people kept expecting the same things out of you as before the accident, knowing you were not capable of them?
Those millions of us walking around with milder brain trauma are struggling, too, and will for the rest of our lives.
I cried through her articles, so thankful that someone took the time to research brain trauma.
Thank you from “the shadows.”
