No Chickens Here

Through the years of living with my traumatic brain injury, also known as brain damage-- yes, it is brain damage-- I have met bunches of people who also have had this life-altering event.  There is no "t.b.i. personality," period.  That's my opinion.

Oh, I know some of the professionals have tried to pigeon-hole us into neat little categories in the manner of professionals who do not want to admit that some of the nastier things in life can happen to them too.  I've heard that we t.b.i.-folks don't have a sense of humor, are rigid and demanding, need structure, need routine, are suited to work at menial jobs if any at all, got religion to a fault, are given to fixations and obsessions, can't can't cant.

I had to learn not to allow the professional literature, research, and downright misunderstanding define me.  Yes, my brain is altered and skewed.  No, my brain will not ever return to pre-injury status.  Those are facts.  Yes, this is still my life.  No, I don't agree to give my power away.

There aren't any chickens in this holding cell called "post-injury brain damage."  To be sure some of us are cantankerous.  At times we may be fearful-- just like anyone else in the human race.  I am delighted to have found a certain culture among t.b.i.-ers.  Not as defined as deaf culture perhaps, but it is certainly there.

It takes guts to admit over and over again to a series of professionals what things we are still having trouble with, what happened, how we "got this way."  It takes restraint not to knock them off of their smug office furniture flat on their backs.  For every great and wonderful and dedicated helping professional, there are at least four more that deserve to be eaten by Baba Yaga.  Still, we keep going and we manage to live.  Some of us even get to thrive.

So just remember, our brains may resemble scrambled eggs.  But we are not chickens.  Dinosaurs maybe...