Brain injury affects families. While injured brains share common symptoms, no two brain injuries are exactly alike. That is the reason the best care and the best hope for becoming a successful survivor lies with having knowledgeable and loving family members.
A victim of brain injury must have hope, a plan, and resources in order to be successful. There must be at least one loyal person who will become the primary caregiver.
Let's take a look at brain injury using pictures to help us understand why it can be so overwhelming.
All traumatic brain injuries share a common beginning. Life is going along normally just like everyone else. And then...an unexpected and unwanted event happens.
Brain injury is similar to the ground giving way and the person falling into a deep crevice.
Family members stand atop the crevice while the injured person is far below struggling for life or seeking a return to "the way it was."
Your loved ones, deep in the crevice, finds that they are trapped in a fog because their brain is not doing what it once did.
They cannot remember things: names, places, people, events. They have trouble coming up with the correct words when trying to talk.
Something is wrong, but they don't know what it is.
Not knowing becomes a problem, itself.
Your loved ones are scared, handcuffed by an unwanted reality they don't understand.
They may tend to deny anything is wrong while they struggle with little things that seem so hard now.
Fear of the unknown and not being able to perform simple things leads to mental fatigue, and they become very easily irritated.
Irritation is a natural response when things are not going right.
Your loved ones are chained in a new reality on the other side of the crevice.
More problems arise:
...memory
...thinking
...behavior changes
A chain of events can easily begin to take root and overwhelm them.
...mental fatigue
...confusion
...frustration
...guilt
...depression
This Cycle of Response can have devastating results. A good portion of our book examines this Cycle.
What you should know now is that the Cycle must be stopped before it reaches the far side of depression.
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