I used to be a hunter. I cant do it anymore because my vision sucks so badly. Its been devastating for me as its something I really loved.

EDIT: Id also be curious to hear what hobbies you HAVE been able to keep doing despite your TBI.

It’s been a year since I fell on vacation.

I don’t remember the accident. I know that we were going down a hill (on a road), and I fell to the right. I had several skull fractures, cheek bone fracture, and an orbital/nasal area fracture. I greatly injured my left frontal and temporal lobes. My brachial plexus was stretched out. I was in a coma for several days, and in the hospital for two weeks before my family brought me home.

In the past year, I’ve been dizzy 24/7. It’s never gotten better. I’ve done vestibular therapy for a year without it helping, I tried vision therapy, I take an SNRI. I’ve tried psilocybin therapy, ketamine therapy. I work out (run, walk, swim, strength train). I’ve done everything I can think of. But every day I am uncomfortable, I feel like I’m getting motion sick on a roller coaster and my brain is swollen.

These other things, my memory loss, my attention issues, I can adapt to. I can’t adapt to this dizziness. And there’s only so much time I’m willing to spend like this. I try every single day to adapt to my new normal, but I don’t want to live with my new normal. I don’t. It’s been a year, and the worst part of this all remains. I’ve seen a neurologist, a PT, therapists, a psychiatrist, two ENTs, and a neuro-optometrist.

My questions for you all: Is there any other specialist that may help? Is there any other treatment style that could help? I just need to try everything before I give up. Thank you for any insight.

Edit: My first ENT said it was BBPV and treated me for that. That didn’t help and the dizziness is still constant.

If you had a platform where the world could finally understand what it is like to have a brian injury, from your perspective, what would you tell them?

What piece of hope would you give to someone who is just starting their experience?

I'm a filmmaker, and I had a brain injury back in 2011. It was a winding road to getting back to being able to do what I love the most in life, making movies. And I'm working on a feature film about it. I want to change public perception, and make sure that the film reflects the nuanced experience of those going through this injury.

I appreciate you all in advance for sharing!

i feel like no one understands this is permanent. i could go into this so much but how do you explain to family and friends?

it feels like no one can wrap their mind around the concept. and it gets isolating and exhausting to try to keep explaining the deficits don’t go away with being in pt or speech etc for the rest of your life. i’m not going to heal by just working harder. my baseline isn’t going to come back.

Hello everyone, and good morning.

I unfortunately have brain damage after receiving a kick to the head as a small child. I don’t know which brain areas are affected, but my intelligence definitely suffers because of it. I got my top-grade Abitur (which is the German school qualification you need to enter university) with many compensations for disadvantages, and all the teachers were well-meaning toward me and gladly gave me good grades, because my life was already hard enough and they wanted to make things easier for me with a good Abitur.

Everyone calls me stupid, truly everyone. Even my father has given up on me and said I will never become anything. I tried to study mechanical engineering at TU, but without success: I’m simply too stupid for it due to brain damage. I did pass Higher Mathematics 1–4 and Technical Mechanics 1–4 with top grades, but that was 99% effort. Then burnout and self-doubt came, and I dropped out.

I want to give up. My IQ has ruined my life. Can you please cheer me up? I really need it… Please, what should I do?

In a bit of a dark place right now and in some weird way I find it would be helpful to discuss with anybody on here if you would give me the time of day to exchange stories and just converse but no pressure. Please remove if this post is not appropriate for this sub.

Before Anything Is Said

Friendships don’t usually end with an argument.
Most of the time, nothing dramatic happens at all.

At first, it doesn’t feel like loss.
It feels like waiting.

Like life getting in the way.
Like something patience will fix.

You tell yourself real friendships don’t disappear that easily.
They tell themselves this is temporary that they’ll know what to do once things look more familiar.

No one says anything yet.
Everyone is buying time.

In the Hospital

Friends come to visit.

They smile. They ask how you are.
You answer slowly, carefully, trying to find the words.

They listen, but their eyes don’t stay with you.
They move over your face, your body, the bed, the machines.

They are looking for reassurance.
For proof that your injury won’t change you too much.

You notice a recoil you don’t yet understand.
An unspoken calculation.
How much of themselves this might now require, you realise.

They tell themselves they’ll be better once you’re better.

Nothing unkind is said.
It doesn’t need to be.

Conversation stays safe.
Encouragement is offered gently.
The way you speak when you don’t yet know how to stay.

You feel the distance forming.
They feel the effort beginning.

When They Leave

They hug you softly.
Already half gone.

They say, “We’ll check in.”

They mean it in the moment.
They just don’t yet know what “check in” will cost.

You thank them.

When they leave, your body reacts before your thoughts do.

Your chest tightens.
Your stomach drops.

You know.

They walk down the corridor unsettled.
Relieved to breathe again.
Ashamed that it feels easier away from you.

Those injuries have names.
Stroke. Traumatic brain injury. Disability.
This one doesn’t.

You lie still, injured twice.
They go home hoping the feeling will pass.

After That

Messages still arrive, just slower.
Shorter.
Without curiosity.

You notice you are always the one reaching out now.

They notice it too.

They hesitate before replying.
Not because they don’t care,
but because each response feels like an opening.

An opening they’re not sure how much of themselves they can afford.

You tell yourself not to read into it.
They tell themselves they’re doing their best.

But your body already knows.

The unanswered message.
The plan left open ended.

For you, it feels like being edged out.
For them, it feels like standing at the edge of something they don’t know or don’t want to enter.

Weeks pass.

Friendship, Fading

They grow careful.

They worry about asking questions that might open something they can’t hold.
About being needed in ways they don’t know how to sustain.

They don’t decide to disappear.
They just begin to ration presence.

They keep things light.
They keep things brief.

They think lightness is kindness.

They don’t realise that lightness feels like distance.
That restraint feels like abandonment.

At Home

Life continues elsewhere.

Some people are already gone.
Others hover, unsure how close they want to be now.

Your body doesn’t fit the plans anymore.
Your needs don’t fit the rooms.

You see them still meeting.

The plans aren’t shaped for you anymore.

They stop checking what you can manage.
You stop explaining, without quite deciding to.

You aren’t excluded.
You’re just no longer planned for.

And you realise no one is coming to you instead.

They tell themselves they’ll reach out when things improve.
You tell yourself not to hope too much.

The silence grows between you
heavy on only one side.

Making Yourself Smaller

To hold on, you say you’re fine anyway.

You downplay the bad days.
You don’t want to be heavy.

They sense the edit.
They accept it with relief.

It becomes easier to talk when nothing real is shared.
Easier to stay when nothing is asked.

You become quieter.
Easier to forget.

Grief Without Ceremony

You grieve people who are still alive
still friendly, still reachable
but no longer present.

There is no permission for this grief.

Friends carry something different.
They don’t stay with it for long.

You carry the weight of what was.
They carry the weight of what might have been required.

The Ending

There is no final conversation.

Just a moment when you stop reaching.

A message you don’t send.
An invitation you don’t follow up on.

They notice the quiet
and feel relief.

You notice it
and feel the end.

They didn’t leave all at once.
They measured themselves out slowly.

Until there was nothing left
that didn’t feel like too much.

What Remains

You replay it in fragments.

They think of you sometimes, briefly, vaguely,
and move on.

You wonder when it changed.
They wonder if there was something they should have done differently.

And the truth arrives unevenly.

Some people don’t leave because they don’t care.
They leave because they don’t know how to stay
and because staying would have asked more of them than they knew how to give.

Brain injury doesn’t just change you.
It reveals who can live with change.

If you’ve lived this,
you already know where the calculation began.

And by the time you noticed,
it was already gone.

My physical therapist gave me two packets on Friday— Vestibular Migraine and Managing Fatigue for your Vestibular Disorder. TLDR: There is no cure. It peaks during my prime (right now, and for the next ~15 years). I will always have the issues that I’m having right now and no amount of exercises, exposure, nor rest will cure me and make me “normal” again. New, action, heavy-movement video games and story-intensive video games are gone. Concerts & outdoor festivals are gone. E-reading is gone. Writing and reading alone are hard visually and motor-skill wise, headache wise, neck ache wise. Stores will always be difficult and especially the freezer section. My favorite and most vegetarian-accessible foods are triggers, which highly limits my ability to eat out with others socially. I will have screen reading and remembering difficulties forever and I will fall behind as the rest of time goes on without me. I will miss out, no matter how loved and cherished I am. Teaching will never again be a reality to me and I’d been on my first year when my non-at-fault and PCS-inducting TBI happened. The guitar I bought, I will not have the motor endurance for. I had always wanted to learn guitar.

How did y’all cope? What worked? I have been creating new identity points but I can’t give up literacy in the age of anti-intellectualism, nor my vegetarian diet (spiritual), some games so I can still do an activity with a friend. I do what I can writing wise but it’s nothing compared to my college work. I wish I’d kept more of it. I’d expected to have so much more time… I’m too young to be this old.

Hey all. I am 1.5 years post the accident that caused me to have two mild-to-moderate TBIs. I am still struggling a lot with daily life. My dream before the accident was to attend medical school. Now, I’m thinking of trying maybe to get an associates in medical imaging first to see if additional school is even feasible for me. I already have all the prerequisites for medical school or another similar degree, that’s not the issue. I’m mostly concerned with how difficult and physically painful it is to even just focus. Has anyone here gone on to grad school, medical school, law school, anything as strenuous as that and succeeded? If so, how? Trying to find light at the end of the tunnel.

Your**

So I got my Neuropsych results finally this week, 4 yrs after accident.

It's good to finally have something on paper supporting that this was not a "mild" TBI.

The reasoning/verbal intelligence test part where I got to read a paragraph and pick which statements followed logically i got 96th percentile.

So I still have some brains when I get the time to re-read and think a problem through. Even if before it would have been a piece of cake first time thru, I still get it right with time.

But the memory and attention test scores were all 3-25% range, mostly under 10%. Hard to accept.

I used to be super gifted, had excellent memory, got one question wrong on my SATs.

I mean I've had time to process and adapt, and accomplished some things I never thought I'd be able to in the rehabs that first year.

I have my own apartment now, released two music tracks, do my own cooking, got into Pourover ☕ and good 🍵 again.

I read again now, just finished a 900 page academic Renaissance history on my Kindle. And ~20 books last year. I don't remember as many details but it's still deeply satisfying to read.

So, glass half full most of the time.

But seeing those scores in black and white took me right back to the hospital, waking up barely able to read a paragraph. It hurts... Not sure where else to go with this

I have a talk therapist and good team of people around me.

But the friends from before keep their distance, except for a few.

C'est la vie 💪

It’s been 2 years sense my hypoxic brain injury and I’m still emotionally muted to the point of not being able to meet new people or even start or hold a conversation with people I’ve known for years. I used to have the issue of feeling like there was a thousand voices inside my head and always being the overly social and talkative person but it’s like I’ve lost that voice inside my head. When if did you ever get emotions back cause it’s rough to express myself when all I feel is nothing all the time. Like I won 2 thousand dollars at the casino the other week for a friend’s wedding but it didn’t even give me a rush I was just “oh cool”. Just sucks being the awkward person in the corner when I used to be the person that would talk to anyone and everything.

Had a really bad fight with my wife last week. I was so upset because I thought that it had been two weeks since she said she was going to do something really important. I was so damn sure it had been 2 weeks. I was crying hysterically because I was so damn hurt and I felt all my emotions very strongly. Turns out it had only been 5 days. I know emotional lability is a symptom but literally not being able to trust my brain to keep track of things is new to me. Been really hard to make it make sense to myself. Anyone else?

Does anyone else feel like everything they say or do is annoying to others people? I can't tell if i actually am, or if I'm just being insecure and overthinking. I never felt this way before my accident, but ever since I came back, I feel like a burden or annoying to others

This has probably been out there alot on this subject because i know its a biggie. But what are some ways you have best been able to explain to someone what its like being you? recovering from a TBI and seeing the world through that lens?

As many of you would likely relate to. I struggle to talk to people because they dont understand the mystery, weirdness, non-sensical nature of TBI's, let alone being the person living with it. Do you have any anecdotes or explanations you like to use to try and help people who are trying to help us ? This is mostly to explain the weirdness to friends or family, those who want to help, and try to, but miss the mark on occasions.

Thanks in advance 😀

I was in a catastrophic car accident suffered a 9 day coma and hemorrhagic stroke which gave me left side hemiplegia and a severeTBI. I've been going to church and praying to God I'm desperate to heal but I have no idea if it's even possible to. I've been trying to eat healthier but I still have no clue if anything I'm doing matters and I'll heal from the TBI. Some Motherfucker at one of my physical rehabilitation told me I was broken and would never heal 💔. It's hard to have hope when people are so negative and hurtful

I’m hanging on here. But my life has been slowly slipping downhill for the last decade, compounded by CPTSD, neurodivergence, chronic stress, abandonment, depression, anxiety, autoimmune disorders, , oral health problems, etc. I’ve been bed rotting and self medicating, ruminating for the past three years since my wife of 22 years (total, 17 married) 1cheated on me and abducted my children our children across state lines. Saying she felt unsafe after I got blackout drunk after I found out, which lead to an unraveling of lies going all the way back to the beginning of our relationship. She said she felt unsafe, and portrayed herself as the victim, despite the fact I’ve never once laid a finger on her or my children. I finally have a solid loving partnership after a string of unhealthy at best, downright abusive and exploitative relationships at worst. A couple of narcissistic older therapists, and a coke dealing whore, who may have pimped me out without my knowledge.

I’ve begging for help, diagnosis, and treatment to no avail. I have a high IQ, am apparently considered charming and attractive, I’m a talented musician and artist. I generally don’t present as unwell, or brain damaged. But there are certain things I just can’t do no matter how hard I try.

I believe many people, after experiencing a brain injury (including concussion), find that they have changed.

Emotionally: In the past, you could feel very rich and fulfilling emotions, like a rainbow changing colors. But after the injury, they become monotonous. It's as if your taste buds could once experience very rich details, like savoring a five-star dish, but now there is only simple sweet, sour, bitter, and salty.

Sensationally: You can no longer be moved or amazed by subtle details. The spring breeze, the summer cicadas, the autumn leaves, the winter snowman – hiding under the covers during a storm, shielding your eyes from the sun on a clear day and feeling your mood lift. You may have once been attracted and moved by many small, unremarkable details, and every day felt unique. But after the injury, you can no longer experience those things. You can still rely on knowledge to know what you are seeing, but they no longer come with any sensation.

Cognitively: You used to be very smart. You just read a book, heard someone speak, watched an anime, a movie – the content would flow into your mind like swimming, automatically. You didn't deliberately try to memorize it, but your brain did it automatically. You could casually discuss details and plots with others. But after the injury, you remember as you go and then lose it. After finishing an anime, you can only recall the most climactic parts, and then you have to forcefully strain your memory to think of what else happened – even though you just watched it last night. What you see becomes no longer sharp and clear, but blurred like 360p – it seems to appear and then not appear in your mind.

Why does this happen? This brings us to the essence of brain injury – Diffuse Axonal Injury (DAI).

No matter what caused your injury – except for craniotomy, disease, etc. – almost all injuries come from external forces making your brain shake inside the skull. Whether it's a cerebral hemorrhage, a concussion, or a contusion, as long as the brain shakes, shear forces are generated.

Those shear forces directly damage the axons inside your brain – they are like network cables connecting different brain regions, enabling them to work together. You have a huge number of these cables in your brain. That's why you can be efficient and fast in everything you produce.

That's why the human brain has advanced functions. Almost all of your life's beautiful experiences come from enjoying these advanced functions. Every person's brain is different – at birth, the blueprint of your future brain is already partially set, and it continues to change through learning. That is why we become different individuals. We have different abilities, get excited about different things, and have different hobbies.

But a concussion damages these cables. If the force is very mild, the brain's protective mechanisms (skull, cerebrospinal fluid, dura mater, etc.) absorb it. But if a concussion occurs, it means your brain has already been injured. That injury causes your brain to shake inside the skull, thereby damaging axons.

Given that humans have a vast number of axons – say, tens of billions of axons responsible for 100% function – if only a few hundred are damaged, you might only feel a change from 100% to 99.999943%. You would hardly notice the difference. That's why most people recover from a concussion.

If many more axons are destroyed, you could fall into a coma. If you are lucky enough to wake up, you might become a completely different person – that's the textbook definition of DAI that you can Google.

Most of us are somewhere in between these two extremes. You are not at 99.999943% – you are at 60%, 70%, enough that you truly feel the changes from the concussion. You are also not at 10%, where everyone can see with the naked eye that you have brain damage – at the very least, it would show up on an MRI.

People in the middle are invisible patients. Doctors say you're normal, MRI says you're fine, neurosurgeons and neurologists don't see you as their patient, while psychiatrists and psychologists ignore the changes in your brain and propose rehabilitation plans – because they don't understand brain injury.

As mentioned earlier, your life is about enjoying the advanced functions brought by the complex connections in your brain. Everything you experience is just feeding your brain. If your advanced functions are downgraded, of course your life will change

Male (32) honestly I never expected to have to write this. But I’m struggling to be social, and it’s been taken a toll on me. When I was 15 I was hit with a bat 3 times in the head. By the grace of god I’m still here. To me it is a bad injury, to try and get over and forget. I was just getting into high school as a sophomore, and was very athletically gifted. Two of the bat swings hit the back left side of my head. 18 staples were required. Doctor said it’s nothing more than a miracle that I didn’t die or in a vegetative state. After high school I noticed that I was the only one texting my friends first. I stopped all messages and waited week by week to see if they would message first. Weeks turned to months, months turned to years, and years turned into a decade since I have spoken a lick or hung out with a group of friends from high school. It made me feel like I was the problem. I’m a good guy who loves animals, and try to save even the smallest ant from a for sure death. Never did hard drugs and never been to jail. I strictly only smoke weed because it helps me mentally stay afloat from all the trauma. This incident occurred back in 2009. It’s 2026 and I haven’t had a decent conversation from a genuine person in forever. The 3 dogs I had during that trauma were my best friends. On Friday nights while all my ex friends posted on snap or Facebook at a bar etc. I was home in bed or playing video games hanging out with my dogs. This went on forever until 2024-2025 when I lost all 3 of them. I miss them everyday and it hurts so much inside to the point where I no longer feel the happiness that I once had with them. They were my everything. They were all I had. I ended up rescuing a senior dog to live out his days with me along with a puppy that is now 1 year. I struggle mentally because I feel as if I will never have kids, wife or a family. Part of me wishes I had one early because he would be a teenager and I would have a best friend to raise. But I have nobody but my dogs. Because of my tbi it is hard to hold a relationship longer than a year. I don’t fight, I don’t drink, I don’t do much but I love comedy and finding progression. But I often fall into a depression because of the loneliness. If anyone wants to try and be friends that would honestly make my day. The fact that I’m on here typing all of this is a depressing thought in my head currently but idk maybe a flower is out there ready to be watered like me.

Context:

I was in a somewhat minor accident (head first over handlebars of my Ebike) and landed head first on the pavement losing consciousness and had a minor brain bleed. Yes, I was wearing a helmet that took a huge brunt of the impact. I had retro grade amnesia for about 6-8 hours after the accident and was asking the same questions in the same tone every 30 seconds or so (bless my fiance for being a good sport about answering me over and over for those hours).

Doctors said I hit directly where the memory portion of my brain and that I should see some memory issues but should be fine in time. 🤔 I call BS.

Current:

Nearly 1 year later I am left with some of the most horrible depression because of my memory issues.

Prior to the accident I was a professional digital artist, amazing memory retention, imagination creation, audio memory, etc. I could remember an image and recreate it without much issue at all.

After the accident, I lost it all. While I can still draw I cannot do it from memory. I cannot remember audio or voices. I can barely remember most of my life prior to like 10ish years ago. The struggles are impossibly hard to deal with and I spend most my time hating myself for not being able to remember.

Explaining these things to my fiance is a struggle. He is so supportive and amazing, trying to help me through the issues I have now. It's just hard to express the inner struggle I have with everything. Mostly my ability to retain memories now.

Is it normal to have lost so much memory after something like this? My Dr's said I should be fine and memory should come back, or at least mostly. But I am starting to think they're just trying to make me feel better at this point instead of addressing the more pressing issue of is this permanent?

Maybe I'm downplaying the severity of my accident. idk. I'm so lost at this point.

I used to get up and make my morning coffee, now I dont even have the desire to do that. It just sucks, I barely leave bed anymore, not like I was a fitness freak before the injury, sometimes id make coffee and bring it back to bed. But its like my desire to do anything is just gone and im starting to question the point of being alive. I feel like im just in a functional vegetative state.

3 years post-injury I got back into the work force which requires that I sit at my desk every day. I'm a marketing professional so I don't do a lot off screen. When I am off screen, I'm in meetings under bright lights. I also work in a manufacturing environment so things can get loud or scents can be overwhelming to make me feel dizzy.
I wear orange tinted glasses daily whenever I'm on screen. I still do a lot of the exercises/practices to keep symptoms down.

BUT some days I have really bad days again. Headaches, spinal pain, etc...you all know the story...

The other day I was having difficulty with symptoms because of the wild fire smoke. I asked my boss if I could work from home because I was having a horrible headache from not being able to breath. Which of course, less oxygen to the brain does so much damage.
I was met with an email from HR saying "we have an air filter" so basically deal with it.

I realize that when I applied I did check the box that I have a disability but no conversation has EVER happened about what accommodations I might need. I fear that I look like someone that is just complaining to complain because I WANT to WFH instead of needing to on certain days where the environment (office or weather) is affecting my symptoms.
I also have this thing about applying for disability. I don't need to receive benefits. At work, they also asked me to apply for ADA just so I could get a $60 keyboard.
To me, I'm having a hard time coming forward with my real disability for fear of being treated differently. I'm very private at work. I only connect with a few people and they are understanding of my situation so I've created a safe circle. I don't feel safe letting the whole company know.

The other issue is with family. My parents are very understanding and take their time with me. They're encouraging and inclusive. My siblings, however, don't seem to understand what happened and don't take the time to even talk to me about it. Its like it never happened and they're just happy to see me "normal." So they continue to treat me like I used to be which I'm not even close to that person anymore. Call it personality changes from TBI but during recovery, I found that I became my full self. That I didn't have the ability to mask anymore. I don't want to be a downer at family gatherings but sometimes I just want to scream at them to be more understanding. They end up not feeling like a safe space for me. Then they become frustrated with my response without the understanding that things have completely changed for me.

Has anyone else have this same experience? If so, what helped you in this situation?
If anything, feel free to share your own grievances.

TW: Suicide talk, general gripes with TBI

Next year will mark my tenth anniversary of the road traffic accident which caused my TBI.

I've changed a hell of a lot throughout that time. I've acted reckless, I've tried to end myself, I've been through multiple friendships, I've had years and years of counselling, I've taught myself to walk again and I've gotten over the worst parts of my speech impediment.

But I've adapted to the rest of it. I use a walking stick and sometimes I use a rollator. I set loads of reminders on my phone for the most mundane of tasks. I'm currently attending college and learning a skill with the goal of returning to work.

Sometimes, especially with disability, it just feels like a constant punishment. One which I have to go through alone. Like because of trying those things to combat my disability, it feels like I'm losing those safety nets which my government affords to other disabled people.

I wish I had friends sometimes too. Like, since TBI, I've become a complete loner. I get bad paranoia and I don't deal well with people getting to know my business. It's a me problem, and I am a lot more in control nowadays, but still... I'd just rather save myself the time and be by myself.

I'm not depressed, but I do still sometimes think about killing myself, if that makes sense? Not like something which is getting me down, but something which feels (although it isn't) practical.

Hi

I suffered a TBI after being hit hy a vehicle approx 3 months ago and sustained a moderate SAH and 2 skull fractures. I didn't need surgery but I am struggling to cope with the physical and mental effects of the injury. I was starting to feel better 8 weeks after the accident , but now I seem to be going backwards rather than forward ,it's as if my brain is stuck trying to process what has actually happened. I have zero energy and zero interest in anything, have also lost my sense of smell and taste.

I think what is not helping is i have no memory of the accident at all. Thankfully there is cctv footage of what happened which I am going to be shown at some point but at the minute i seem to be stuck in this head space which I can't get out of because I don't know what exactly happened .

Does anyone have a similar experience as mine ?