about last night
Last night I had a really good conversation in my Traumatic Brain Injury chat room. A woman showed up, wanting to get help for her 25 year old son, who suffered a TBI nine years ago. Since then he's been in jail several times, all for stupid petty things.
This kid sounds a lot like I was -- gifted pre-TBI, still gifted afterward, doesn't want to be "retarded", interested in many of the same things I am, very high-functioning, and so on.
I could have easily gone down the road that he's going down with my injury. But I didn't. Now she wants me to help her son. There's only so much I can do, though; there's only so much she can do, since he's his own person and making his own way.
Now, I know these few lines can't convey the entire depth and breadth of the conversation we had. Trust me, though, it got very deep, very quickly. Eventually I put it to her: "if it came down to letting him destroy his life OR seeing the relationship between the two of you destroyed ... which would you choose?"
That is surely the road she's headed down -- if she bails him out of jail yet again, he will just do something stupid again, and the cycle will repeat. What she needs to do is help give him the tools he can use to get himself to a better place. This I never really had; I had help in recovering from my TBI, but I did the majority of the work on my own. I didn't have any resources or support groups to lean on.
*I* did it. Noone else. Me.
Later that evening, I was talking to rhianwyn about this. She suggested that I become an advocate for TBI folks like me -- do public speaking, tell people about my injury, show them that recovery is possible. Maybe even talk to people bout being careful with their heads -- people in motorcycle classes, for instance.
I have no idea how I'd start that, but it sure sounds interesting and rewarding.
Comments and thoughts are welcomed, as always.
This kid sounds a lot like I was -- gifted pre-TBI, still gifted afterward, doesn't want to be "retarded", interested in many of the same things I am, very high-functioning, and so on.
I could have easily gone down the road that he's going down with my injury. But I didn't. Now she wants me to help her son. There's only so much I can do, though; there's only so much she can do, since he's his own person and making his own way.
Now, I know these few lines can't convey the entire depth and breadth of the conversation we had. Trust me, though, it got very deep, very quickly. Eventually I put it to her: "if it came down to letting him destroy his life OR seeing the relationship between the two of you destroyed ... which would you choose?"
That is surely the road she's headed down -- if she bails him out of jail yet again, he will just do something stupid again, and the cycle will repeat. What she needs to do is help give him the tools he can use to get himself to a better place. This I never really had; I had help in recovering from my TBI, but I did the majority of the work on my own. I didn't have any resources or support groups to lean on.
*I* did it. Noone else. Me.
Later that evening, I was talking to rhianwyn about this. She suggested that I become an advocate for TBI folks like me -- do public speaking, tell people about my injury, show them that recovery is possible. Maybe even talk to people bout being careful with their heads -- people in motorcycle classes, for instance.
I have no idea how I'd start that, but it sure sounds interesting and rewarding.
Comments and thoughts are welcomed, as always.