A few of the main mTBI (mild TBI- although nothing seems mild about it)/concussion/post concussive symptoms are headaches, fatigue and nausea. Normal people understand these symptoms because they have them too. Someone who gets migraines might feel like they understand what these TBI symptoms feel like. They are terrible. The difference is a person with a TBI gets these, but combined with cognitive impairment. Ie short term memory loss, slower processing speeds, word finding difficulty (ie can’t think of basic words needed to form a sentence), inability to concentrate or focus. Sometimes we don’t even know how much these functionalities are available to us. They break down at exponential speeds with brain fatigue. And brain fatigue comes from just about everything. Literally just being alive. Hearing a loud noise, waiting a car go by. These all drain energy.

Everyone has heard “you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.” For example, you lose your umbrella. But you likely won’t notice you’ve lost it, until you need it. Until it rains again, and you can’t find it. Or more serious things, such as a spouse, friend etc.

The same is true after a brain injury. In some ways you’re still you. And then you try to read a few words on a card. And you can’t. A 5 year old could do it, you think. You know how to literally read. But the process of you brain looking at the word, determining what it is, and saying it out loud takes buttloads of energy. And after you do it a little, you might be so nauseous and headachy and tired that you have to sleep THE REST OF THE DAY. and maybe most of the next.

So inherently you know HOW to do this activity, but you must retrain your brain to do it and accept that it is not as dangerous as how you injured your brain in the first place.

Filing a document into the correct folder and subfolder on the computer. Something most of us do all the time with our jobs. I had no idea I would barely be able to do that until I tried it. It was like a 90 year old trying to do it. A little shaky, I couldn’t keep the mouse where I wanted it to go and trying to hold it down and drag to the right place took an insane amount of focus and coordination. It was so tedious, I ignored it like the plague.

I mentioned squats earlier. At the appointment, when my therapist M had me try some, I thought easy peasy here we go. After 5 I was sick and wiped. Woah nelly! What the hell I thought. I know how to do it, my legs will do it. But my brain can’t handle it.

One time PT M had a deck of cards. She told me to flip over a card, say the number out-loud, and then place the card down in 4 piles according to the suit. My goodness this is silly and easy I thought. Again nope. Brain didn’t like it. More fatigue, nausea, dizziness, headaches.

Same with driving a car, walking down a street block, remembering what was said 1 minute before, reading, being awake for more than a few hours, leaving the house, etc, etc etc etc

I didn’t want to know that I had “lost my umbrella.” Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day.