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Brain Injuries Lead to Loss of Innocence

Having a traumatic brain injury (TBI), also known as head injury, makes survivors disinhibited, and extremely vulnerable. While most people who haven’t acquired brain damage realize how inappropriate it is for someone to take off her shirt in a particular setting, the survivor doesn’t see anything wrong with pealing away clothing and asking someone to return the affection.

Head Injured Does NOT Mean Idiot

Many times, people who acquire brain injury are treated as if there’s something wrong with them. For example, if someone speaks a little slower than what a person is accustomed to, often they are written off as being below average or stupid. For some time after my brain trauma, I was unable to care for myself, and I grew accustomed to having everything done for me by my family and team of caregivers. During the months after my coma, I didn’t think about anyone but myself, which, as I’m sure you’ll agree, is a very child-like trait to have. Part of maturing is learning to put others’ needs before our own, but the traumatic brain injury (TBI) survivor usually is so focused on what she needs to do to get better that she neglects caring for anyone else, not to mention caring for someone else’s feelings.

The TBI survivor may revert to very childlike behavior patterns — even years after the injury. Some of the issues I still struggle with are delaying my gratification and impulse control. Sometimes I say things and then think, “What the hell was I thinking?” And you probably don’t want to leave me in the room alone with an unopened bag of OREOs!

11 Signs You Might Have Received a Traumatic Brain Injury

Did you know that each year, 1.4 Million people sustain a traumatic brain injury? Of that nearly 1½ million, three in four people who suffer head trauma come into the ER, are treated and then are released. That sort of begs the question: If you get hit in the head, how do you know how severe it is? I’ve listed 11 things which indicate you’ve had a serious head injury.

Things to be mindful of after getting your noggin knocked: (And let me admit to you right now that I have borrowed the list from The Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Resource Center in Orlando, Fla.)

1. Headaches and neck pain
2. Difficulty remembering or concentrating
3. Issues with thinking, speaking, acting or reading
4. Fatigue, lack of energy and decreased motivation
5. Changes in sleep patterns
6. Dizziness or lightheadedness
7. Nausea and vomiting
8. Blurred vision
9. Increased sensitivity to noise, lights or distractions
10. Loss of the senses, such as smell or taste
11. Bleeding from ears. I added this trait because when my parents said I was bleeding from my ears when they got to the ER. I have heard of other people bleeding from the ears after receiving a blow to the head, and usually it’s a sign that something more serious is going on below the surface.

Frontal Lobes and Impulse Control

A psychiatrist once told me that the frontal lobes in a person’s brain were like the front brakes on a bicycle when it comes to controlling one’s impulses. Yes, it is possible to stop yourself, he told me, but it’s gonna take much more time and determination than if your frontal lobes were fully intact.

The issue of impulse control affects all aspects of our lives–or at least I look back and see where I could have used more impulse control and better judgment at times over the past 20 years. For instance, when hungry, most people eat until they aren’t hungry anymore. Not so with a traumatic brain injury (TBI) survivor. For me, I know that if I liked the taste of something I was eating, I kept eating. And eating. And eating, until I was on the verge of making myself sick.

When it came to control urges, like thirst or sexual, I tended to cross the line where most people would realize the actions were becoming inappropriate. I remember one of my female physical therapists tying my shoe while I was sitting in the wheelchair–unable to walk or talk yet. As she patiently tightened my high-tops, I glimpsed a bit of cleavage. Without a second though, I reached down with my right hand–since I didn’t have good control of my left–and grabbed her breast.

When she objected I removed my hand from her blouse, and she said, “You can only do that with your girlfriend, but don’t tell your mom I said that.” So when “Alicia” and her family talk about how she was not able to control many of her urges, I can relate.

This lack of inhibition caused by acquired brain injury causes many of the people who used to be friends to stay away from the survivor. The sense of isolation caused by the loss of friends causes many survivors to engage in self-destructive behavior like drinking, drug-use, tobacco use, and a variety of other addictions.

Seems like they’re talking about me…

As I watched this video, I realized that for most of the problems they list in the PowerPoint presentation, I have either experienced them earlier in my recovery or am experiencing them on a daily basis. This presentation is the first time I have really felt that someone other than a traumatic brain injury (TBI) survivor understands what it’s like to live with acquired brain injury. If you or a loved-one has suffered head trauma, you need to know one thing: YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

You Cannot Give Up!

Very often, when people see a head injury survivor early on in her recovery, the first question they ask is “What’s wrong with you?” But just because you–we–are not like the people who are around us doesn’t mean that something’s wrong with us. After brain trauma, we should have one thing on our minds: How do I get better?

Did you get that? I said better, not back to what we had known as “normal.” As the Alicia videos have shown, we all change after acquiring a head injury.

The video I’m showing you is of a very brave and tenacious woman who has sustained a traumatic brain injury. The theme of this video is never to give up. As a head injury survivor, I can tell you that this is the mantra we all must have. Never Give Up! It may be difficult–downright hard at times–but rather than thinking about how you were or how you could be, you should think, “Well, that’s better than yesterday, and I wonder how well I’ll do tomorrow!”

Facing the Giants. Don’t Give Up Until You Got Nothin’ Left

People who have sustained head injuries tend to have a difficult time in conquering their addictions—whether they be chemical, food, or habits/lifestyle. While chemical addictions are the most common, they are only part of the larger equation of addiction + head injury.

Chemical

Under this category, I’m grouping all illegal drugs (crack, meth, etc.), alcohol and tobacco. While I’ve never engaged in any illegal drugs, I presume that they provide a similar buzz that alcohol and tobacco.

I have experience with alcohol and tobacco, though. Before I had my car wreck, I had only ever shared a menthol cigarette with a friend. Sure, I had people offer me a smoke, and I’m sure I could have come across all sorts of chemicals (like beer and alcohol), but since I was on the varsity wrestling team for my high school, I was trying to take care of my body so that I would be able to be the best I could.

About a year after my wreck, I had a cigarette at school. It was a full-flavored Marlboro. From that point on I was hooked on the buzz, the light-headed feeling I got when I fully inhaled the smoke. And though I’ve attempted to quit permanently many times, the most success I’ve had doing it was when I took Chantix—a prescription pill which would actually stimulate the brain to release the same chemicals that the nicotine caused. In addition to having those endorphins in my brain, it actually would “clog up” the nicotine receptors in my brain. Therefore, when I did “slip” and smoke a cigarette, I would feel as though I was sucking on a straw—I’d get nothing from it.

However, though I had been smoke-free for about seven months, one afternoon I was under tremendous stress, and started smoking again. I felt like I needed that crutch—but I didn’t.

As far as alcohol goes, it’s pretty much the same story, but I wasn’t able to get away with it as easily. I started drinking when I was at college, and because my brain wouldn’t handle the alcohol as well as a non-injured brain would, I would usually wind up stumbling back to my room at a very early hour, and fall asleep on the bed—only to wake in the morning with a tremendous hangover. And because of the horrid hangover, I either didn’t make it to my 8:00 chemistry class or was too distracted to focus on the subject.

While my friends were able to go out and drink until they couldn’t see straight, I was always a very “cheap date” and would be ready to call it a night by about 9:00. I remember that the neurologic rehab staff always warned me that one drink to a person with a head injury was the same as two drinks to a non-TBI person. So, in essence, I was and still am, eternally in “Happy Hour!”

I had a psychiatrist once explain my propensity to engage in addiction behavior thus: The frontal lobes in a person’s brain are like the front brakes on a bicycle. Since my accident damaged my frontal lobes, my brakes didn’t act as effectively as they should. That’s why, with whatever behavior, whether it is chemical-based or other  (such as gambling), I have a difficulty when it comes time to stop doing whatever it is I’m engaged in at the time.

There has been a great deal of noise on the internet about Chantix and it being recalled because of possible side effects.

Food Addictions

When someone sustains a head injury, they often lose the ability to sense when they are full. This is the reason we (TBI survivors) can become addicted to food. Very often what happens is we keep eating, which stretches our stomachs, until we actually vomit—usually not at the table, but if the ride home is an unusually twisty one, we get carsick.

As a result of our stomachs stretching, we are constantly able to eat more and more food before we become sick. So, guess what happens—we get plumper and plumper until we are fat—sometimes obese. I went to the gym last year and found out that I was not only fat—as I came to call myself—but I was OBESE! Being told that sent me into a minor depression for a couple of days, almost like I was resigned to the fact that I was clinically obese.

A day or so later, I decided I would start working out as if I were on the hit show The Biggest Loser.

Lifestyle

I began going to the gym for about two hours every day of the week except Sundays (because it was closed). I rode my bicycle almost everywhere I needed to go—to the dentist, to the pharmacy to church, to the coffeeshop and to the gym. I had become obsessed with fitness. People were commenting to me that I had quit smoking and lost weight while most people gained weight when the quit cigarettes.

I was getting this endorphin high on a regular basis and what wound up happening to me is I overdid it. I didn’t have someone like Bob or Jillian, with a team of doctors and nutritionists to make sure I was eating the proper amounts of protein, carbs, and vegetables. While I was eating well enough, I didn’t know when to say, “Okay, let’s make this a light day,” and I pulled my back.

This injury made it hurt to walk, but more importantly, it got me out of the habit of going to the gym. So, once again, I became soft in the middle.

In Conclusion

The crux of this post is to warn or encourage other TBI survivors to stay abstain from the use of habit-causing substances. Whether it’s tobacco, drugs, alcohol or even excessive food intake, we have more difficulty in stopping whatever habit we pick up because our brains work as the brakes for our lives. They may not be totally gone, but they have been injured and just like you wouldn’t drive in a car race with a if your brakes were shot, so you shouldn’t treat your brain like it has the ability to stop whenever it needs to.

I’m interested if this rings true with any other survivors or their families out there.