If at first the help isn’t a good match, keep trying til you get a good fit. Best wishes!
It's incredibly hard for me, too, to make a genuine connection with anyone anymore. There is so much that I'm dealing with that they'll never understand. I'm also an undergrad, returned to school after my injury, and sometimes I feel like all the people around me have better and brighter futures. Before my injury I liked to be spontaneous and travel a lot, but now that's not really an option for me. I want to be happy for my friends who are planning to move to Australia and Europe after college, but I find that I'm mostly jealous and a little sad that that likely will never be me.
And it's not jut that, it's on a basic emotional level, too. So I guess I'm saying, in case it helps, that I feel that way, too? Not sure how much good a connection about not being able to make a connection is, but I hope it makes it easier for you to know you're not alone in feeling alone.
hi Dancer, I know it’s been awhile since I’ve been in here but much has gone on since last we spoke. Like, this place, there is no more chat. What do you suppose is the reason for that ?
I can relate so much with this and understand what you mean. I too feel lonely even when my life prospects look good. Others say there is no reason too. But sure they don’t understand. I will advice though to write a goal list and to look at it daily, especially during those moments of loneliness.
I think about what groups I can join like hobbies etc or zumba classes. Any thing that will get me socializing. My part time study class I was socializing with once a week. It lifted me.
Hey johnbarryy, we were wondering where you’d gone! Glad to see you back. Yes, there have been some changes around here, some of them great, some that are still works in progress.
What’s the reason, you ask? (Seenie pulls her roll-eyes face 
) Well, a while back the company that hosted and maintained our sites (Bensfriends.org is bigger than a lot of people realize) stopped maintaining the Ning platform – that’s like the “building” where the community “lived”. Then some of our other communities started disappearing completely. Fortunately, they came back (that time, anyway), but we realized that the day they didn’t come back would be the day we lost all the membership information and “history” of the community. In one “poof” Traumaticbraininjury.org would be gone completely, up in smoke, like a high rise fire which destroys everything.
What we did was move the community to a new “building”, built by somebody else. That’s what you see here. The facilities in our new “building” are a bit different from those in the old building. This building (platform) is safer and more modern. The security features will keep the trolls and internet lowlife out. What we don’t have yet is a chat feature that is easy to use. We’ve experimented with a few, and we are getting close to calling the chat construction crew to build us a safe chat zone that will work properly. It all takes time.
The good news is that we still have a TBI community, with the same people, plus a whole lot of great new folks who have joined us. You mentioned Dancer, and we got the message, even though Dancer has another job now. Internet magic still happens!
You already know how to join in on a discussion. If you want to send a private message to someone, just find their avatar (the round picture or initial) to the left of their comment and click on it. Then click on MESSAGE. That’s private.
Or mention their name like this: @johnbarryy
and they will get a link to this discussion in their email, like you just did.
All those things are cool features, and chat will be too when we get it up and running. I miss it too: I remember we used to have chats almost every evening here. We will again!
So great to see you again, johnbarryy!
Seenie (“Mod”) from ModSupport
1 Like
… and people wonder why we are ‘withdrawn’ and reclusive ?[quote=“Dale, post:8, topic:88”]
Thanks
[/quote]
It’s been eight years since my TBI and even though I’ve managed to bring my life back to a reasonable resemblance of its former self the loneliness is s constant companion. For me, the problem is compounded by the fact that before my injury I had spent nearly a decade as the editor of a rural, county seat newspaper. Everybody new me and respected me, and if my phone wasn’t ringing off the hook I had a line of visitors waiting to see me. My days were spent listening to people tell me their stories. All of that came to a sudden end. I am on Social Security Disability due to the effects of my TBI making it impossible to return to my career as a journalist. I miss my work, and wish every day that I could go back. What truly caught me by surprise is how the folks that one valued my input and respected my work seemed to no longer want to deal with me. Perhaps they did not feel comfortable being around someone with a brain injury. But even today I feel abandoned and forgotten. But there are many layers to my loneliness. Perhaps the most difficult aspect for me to deal with are the beautiful gifts my injury took from me. I studied music performance in college and was a talented musician with perfect pitch. That is gone now. I used to have a photographic memory. Gone. When people talked to me it was almost as if my brain was putting their words into print as they spoke, and I could write their story completely in my head by the time I returned to my office. Gone. Forgive me for being so wordy, but this is all spilling out as I type. My family and friends have been extremely supportive, but none of them have experienced a TBI personally (Thank God), so I cannot help but feel as if they are unable to understand, no matter how hard they try.
1 Like
This is good words Trapguy and a TBI makes an individual consciousnesses pronounced, as you just described. I am sorry you have had to experience this type of suffering from what you have lost with your abilities.
You appear sensitive to people and to their feelings, considerate of people’s privacy and needs. You appear to not make people as “other” and as a function of yourself or as objects to be used for your gratification. It appears you still have a hidden talent to listen and are deeply respectful of people. You appear to communicate everyone is valuable because they are individuals.
I am wondering if this talent of yours could be developed with your own individual consciousness and then validating others individual consciousness? I am wondering if your human condition could not be developed with a message everyone is valuable because of the deep respect you offer people?
Good luck!
We are all here cheering you on!
We are here for you when it gets not fun or crazy or whatever, too.
We are in it together.
1 Like
I couldn’t agree more Occipital.
This journey is LONG and very isolating
We truly need the people who have been there and lived it, those who know it and not just those who have studied it.
We need to stick together because we are all in it together and not by choice.
Merl
1 Like