I’m in the car and ready to lose my mind! I hate what this has done to me. My anxiety is sky high and I have a horrible burning sensation on the left side of my head, which has been occurring since the accident and my head is killing me. On the bright side… I haven’t passed out today, haha…ugh
2 Likes
Sound like your still early on…Please take care of yourself…This stuff aint easy, and if you push it you end up paying for it…See what side effects are tied to your anxiety…And try to find ways to relax and let go… 
3 Likes
Hey TLMF,
I have to agree with davOD “This stuff aint easy, and if you push it you end up paying for it…” and I paid DARELY for it. Anybody who tells you it’s easy to get over has NEVER been here and will NEVER know what it is like. I tried to push myself much more than my body could cope with and frustration and pain became the norm. I hated it and hated myself for it too.
I’m now 3.5yrs on since my last incident and have been told “This is about as good as it is going to get” which %^&$ me off no end. I wanted to be back at work years ago and if ‘This is about as good as it is going to get’ I may never be able to. Talk about frustration, that word doesn’t even come close to expressing it.
We have to look at the positives and like you say “…I haven’t passed out today…” it may be a small positive but all those small things add up to eventually make a big positive. And that’s what we have to aim for. I know, for me, I can get what I call those “Poor me’s” and as bad as things are for me I also know there are many people in a way worse off position to me, so at least I can be thankful for that. Again another small positive.
Merl
2 Likes
If you are still passing out you should not be driving. What the hell are you thinking?
1 Like
When I first started before I was really diagnosed I would get anxious walking in the woods or trying to work like there was a bear just waiting. I just didn’t let it stop me. A few things helped me: I realized and through my notes and field journals form when I was working realized I had had triple digit encounters besides the two that hit me, second I didn’t let it stop me. Driving might be a different story, but to be honest I was carrying a very high caliber rifle and/or bear mace every time for a bit. Finally I realized that we get so many more bears in town and where I walked the dogs etc. there was no way to avoid totally removing the risk unless I never left the house. And that’s not how I wanted to live. Sweaty palms and clenched teeth to lockjaw for a bit though
2 Likes
Thank you so much for the kind words. It’s such a struggle everyday. It’s nice to know I’m not alone.
1 Like
Thank you so much davOD. It’s taken so much from me and hearing things like this helps me feel “normal” again.
1 Like
I didn’t say I was driving. I said I was in the car. I had my license medically revoked in April…
1 Like
Yeah, it’s really tough. It’s ruined my relationship. Well, I can’t blame it all on my injury but it played a big part. If I didn’t need my fiance…ex fiance to drive me everywhere after they took my license and I didn’t have the symptoms I did, things wouldn’t have changed. The past 2 months almost broke me. thank god I’m strong otherwise I don’t think I’d be here.
1 Like
On the bright side… I haven’t passed out today, haha…ugh
Lolol. “Haha… ugh” should be the survivor motto or theme song or something. It is elegant because it couldn’t be expressed in less words yet conveys so much about the insanity/joy/misery of the whole experience.
My anxiety is sky high
Yea it is brutal. It is brutal. I’ve got Lorazepam. It helps.
and I have a horrible burning sensation on the left side of my head, which
has been occurring since the accident
I’ve got it in my right leg and arm. It doesn’t “make me known I’m alive” or any other such absurdities: it just hurts.
and my head is killing me.
Is it due to the medical event or is it due to over-doing it? The latter always gets me.
I hate what this has done to me.
Your hatred is warranted.
Yea there are other parts to the whole experience like a lot of good parts and you will read about them here. This is just another part of it that is good to know IMHO.
There’s this supplement call Gaba and it’s a neurotransmitter and it really really really helped me deal with difficult feelings and situations and helps me remain calm and just have more energy to deal with things. I highly recommend it. My doctor had recommended it to me and he had a lot of knowledge about neurology and I’m so grateful for that. I would have never heard of it otherwise. And my favorite place to buy it from is iherb.com and you don’t need a prescription for it you just might find that like me you can’t take like they suggest a whole chewable pill or swallow a whole pill or it’ll like overwhelm you a little bit I could just like you a little bit but when I first took it I needed like four chewable pills at once so just pace yourself and carefully figure out the best dosage for you
And also I had PTSD too and you might find that sometimes the difficult memories will just keep coming up because you need to fully be present with them. You need to really just riix perience them and sometimes do something about it, for example I had to talk about some difficult issues with my mom even though it was always very difficult to talk with her about most anything it really helped me be better able to communicate with her eventually and even though it caused arguments at first overtime we got better at communicating together and our relationship has healed it’s better than ever and that was very rewarding so my advice is to try to figure out what your traumatic memories are trying to tell you when they come up. And also for me they would often come up when I had to figure out I was too tired I needed to rest in a quiet place or take a nap, or I was hungry and I needed to eat or have some sugar, and by the way I recommend juice not candy or soda. Candy or soda will exhaust you after the Sugar Rush goes away but juice will keep you more stable and healthy feeling. Overtime my body is better at filling out its needs but it first when I had a need I would just have a shocking hallucination I would see death everywhere as part of my body would try to visually communicate to me that I was about to die unless I did this or that. So if you ever have a PTSD episode 2 you might just be needing to figure out that you need to eat or rest or sleep or get warmer or cool off or something very survival physical. Much love to you brother I hope this helps and that you feel better
I couldn’t write a truer statement myself. The self doubt, the self loathing. I was told ‘hate’ is a very strong word, but I HATE this.
The tablets help, but when they wear off or don’t work, I’m again left with the reality of ‘Me’(enough to give anyone the shits). I’m forever apologising to those around me, as if I have ANY control. Hell, if I could change it, it would be done. Grrrrrrr, I want the old me back, but that ain’t going to happen. Like you “…I hate what this has done to me.”
1 Like
Hey TLMF, I am new to the site and just seeing your posts now. How are you doing?
Yes I relate to all of this. Hugs.
I have PTSD from it too which makes me mad at myself because I didn’t get it going to war or being in the service or something I feel would be “legitimate”. Even if we are fighting a war nobody but we understand.
I catch myself being paralized with fear because I’m on my 4th year but if something happens and I go back to how my first second and third year (third and a half really) I won’t be able to get through it being as bad as it was early on. I just won’t. I can’t. I wouldn’t be able to make it out if it gets there again.
I barely made it to where I am (which isn’t that great I don’t work, I don’t drive but my head isn’t exploding 24/7 and I don’t sleep three days straight and randomly fall asleep anymore and I can color a coloring page and not have it take literally days).
I came to check out the site today because I have to do neurological testing (again…of course again because these people want to kill me) For a lawsuit.
I’m pretty much just finished having a panic attack. Because what if this makes me go back there? People are assuring me it won’t. I’m more stable now. It’s not helping. I can’t hear them. I’m stuck back there all over again.
I’m still shaking honestly. And that’s just getting told a few hours ago I have to do it. Not counting car ride spending a night in a hotel car ride doing the test all day car ride home. I can’t even go to the grocery store with out needing to leave.
It gets to the point just thinking about how bad it used to be, that things could be that bad, make me want to use horrible coping techniques.
Sorry if that made no sense. Hang in there. There is a day things get…less hard in the sense it becomes more normal to deal with and less bad at least but you aren’t the only one. Hugs.
Hey Caitlin,
I completely understand. I had to fight with an insurance company, going around and around in ever decreasing circle, over the same things time and time again. Never being able to move on. If a brain injury had a fixed set of symptoms, like those of a knee injury it would be simple, but this is not the case for us. Every brain injury is different and affects each individual in a different way. The psychological impact of trying to legitimise our injury is HUGE and it is as if they want to push us to that point of no return. Don’t let them.
I had an insurance assessor tell me “…you are getting what you are getting and that’s all you are going to get…” and yet they were not meeting the conditions of my policy. Now, if I was in breach of the policy they would have every right to reject my claim and yet I had abided by their rules and still they wanted to reject. I had investigators parked outside my house, watching me, watching what I was doing, when I was doing it and how often. It was psychological warfare, so I got a lawyer involved. Someone who could play their games. It did cost me a lot of money, but it saved me from the psychological warfare. I had to attend two medical appointments, but otherwise the lawyers dealt with it all. It did take some months, but eventually the case was settled. I WON.
I now ‘try’ (not always successfully) not to look at how bad things are, but more at how far I have come. Sure things could be a hell of a lot better than they presently are but by the same accord, I could still be stuck back there. Even the little progress I have made is progress. So rather than beating myself up for not being back where I want to be, I congratulate myself for being here where I am. Having dealt with all their ‘crap’ I learnt how to manage, so I know I have the skills, I have the knowledge and so do you. We are survivors, not victims.
Merl
In response to your head hurts, are you overdoing it? Sometimes we do need to rest to avoid draining our brains energy too quickly, which can lead severe headaches much longer needed time for Recovery then if we rested sooner
Hey Merl…
I like what you have written, and I keep telling myself that every day…we are survivors not victims. The most difficult thing for me besides not being able to drive, is having to ask for help, then feeling like I have to apologize…I apologize for stuttering, losing train of thought, word loss, repeating myself, just about everything as if I have done this to myself. My tbi is from someone hurting me, a loved one. The other thing hard to cope with is isolation, and not having emotional support from family. I do have a friend I speak to, but she is 14 hours away…I have been trying to live each day since thishappened as if I am still me, but I am not. I am different and sometimes I get so angry that not one person around me gets that or even trys to…the other night I just sat down and let the tears roll outside on my back porch, away from family…and they came out to see what i was doing…and I really wished someone could have hugged me. instead, it was like i annoyed them. I learned to hide the tears a long time ago and slipped up…oh well…I had forgotten about this site,duh! wonderful memory loss, but my friend back home reminded me when i told her about the other night…so I am glad to have found it again…you are all a blessing!