Prioritizing Successful Recovery Efforts

Most of us, especially early on, think of our brain injuries as one thing. We look at it like it has some kind of answer that will make perfect sense. There’s dirt all over the floor so you buy a vacuum. One of your tires has blown out so you put on the spare. There’s nothing in the fridge so you go to the grocery store or you order carry-out or zip through the drive-through window.

Logical, simple, sane solutions.

Unfortunately, the longer it takes to recover, the more we realize that brain injuries are more like maddening Christmas lights. One light fails and everything goes. You try to find the one failure but it’s all tangled and, when you replace one light, something else is causing the whole string to stay dark.

Most of us do a lot of waiting before we get busy with our successful recovery. There is denial and there is prescribed rest. There are waits to get in to see a doctor and more waits for tests and test results and whatever is prescribed after that.

It is exhausting, frustrating, wearying and heartbreaking.

For those of you who are early in your successful recovery efforts, and for those of you who love someone new to our community, there is a way to slash through the waiting and start making progress on your successful recovery.

Because each of our injuries are distinct and because each of our lives are, as well, only you and your trusted people can decide what needs the most work. Are you single with no kids and you cannot work yet? Afraid of losing the house? Are you partnered but were the primary bread-winner or married and, since your injury, your relationship is really struggling? Do you own a business you can’t manage or have kids who need more than you can give them right now?

What is your biggest problem?

Start there!

It’s too overwhelming to try and fix everything all at once. It’s too time-leaking to just wait for all of this to return to how it was. No one is going to understand how you endure the symptoms of your injury every minute of every day or how many times it affects your daily life.

Only you.

When you begin to prioritize successful recovery efforts, you teach and you share and you receive. You teach those closest to you what you are struggling with and you share the burden of change. You receive information on what is going on in the minds of those you care most about.

Most people, when prioritizing successful recovery efforts, can put the fire out on a lot of high stressors by choosing to work on their primary relationships. We have our own inner turmoil and grief about what we miss in our selves but, too often, we fail to ask our people what they see and what they miss.

If you haven’t asked in a while or if the subject has not been addressed, ask your people what they miss about your old you. Too many people won’t take this simple step because of how painful and scary it might be to hear what our people might say.

You may be surprised.

Often times, partners will admit that they are “over it” and they are tired of you being so self-absorbed and all-consumed with your injury. They miss you showing interest in their day, their struggles, their work, their “stuff.”

Kids might report that you used to bake or you used to cook dinner or you used to whatever.

There’s your starting point.

In an injury that has a blinding blizzard of components, you get started on the relationships that are most important. It’s a conversation. An invitation to team up with those we love in order to find a way through this.

There are ways to eliminate some of the dozens of prickly fall-outs from these injuries.

Do you kids wish you would cook like you used to but you are just too tired by dinner time? Can you install a nap while they are at school? Can you have their favorite meal delivered and invest in dinner chatter with them about their day?

Can you set aside a time each day to allow your partner to share his/her fears, daily stuff, concerns? Can you do it at a time when you are not yet cognitively fatigued so you can actively engage and partner?

What can you do and where can you turn if they report you are angry all time? How can they help you and what strategies can you install if they complain you don’t remember what they told you the day before?

I’ve heard uncountable complaints from brain injury survivors who are so frustrated that their people cannot appreciate all they are going through and continue to bombard them with their “selfish” needs. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that.

The truth is…they aren’t going to understand what you are going through. Not entirely, ever. They are going to want to move on and that will often be way before you feel ready to. They may become resentful of your injury and blame you for not recovering fully because they prefer who you used to be.

Once you realize these things, you have a number of paths you can choose from there. If you choose to try and make your intimate relationships survive, then ask them, invite them, team with them, hear them. And then you get busy solving those problems, one by one. You get help from them on this so that you can participate in that. You change the routine, change the dynamics, change the schedule. You get the help you need to be able to thrive again in the roles that matter most to you.

These injuries hurt everything. Not just our brains. Our relationships, our financial situations, our emotional well-being, how we see ourselves and how others see us.

Figure out what is a priority and get busy there. Just as there are uncountable stories of those unwilling to change and prioritize and get busy, there are even more stories of those who did and are living wonderful lives after successful recovery efforts.

Join us. :))))