• Home
  • About
    • About
    • Testimonies
    • Keynote Speaker
    • How to Contact Me
    • Neuroplasticity to Learn
  • Tips to Empower
  • Media
    • Radio
    • Second Chance to Live YouTube Presentations
    • Building Your Life After Brain Injury YouTube
    • 20 Brain Injury Recovery Slideshow Presentations
    • 23 Posters Designed to Inspire Hope
  • Resources
    • Neuroplasticity
      • Stroke, Brain Injury and Neuroplasticity
      • Neuroplasticity to Learn/Relearn Skills
      • Nine Habits to Excel Neuroplasticity
      • Neuroplasticity PowerPoint Presentation
    • Other Resources
      • Translate
      • 16 SCTL Resources
      • Experiencing a Second Chance to Live PowerPoint Presentation
  • eBooks
  • Honors
    • Publications
    • Organizations

Second Chance to Live

Empowering the Individual, Not the Brain Injury

Traumatic Brain Injury and Learning how to Love and Accept Myself Part 5

February 14, 2010 By Craig

Please read the Introduction to this article on Part 1 as I wrote Traumatic Brain Injury and Denial — My Perspective as a TBI Survivor 2 1/2 years ago. Thank you.

Please read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 before reading Part 5. Thank you.

And now for Part 5.

Traumatic Brain Injury  and Denial— My Perspective as a TBI Survivor Part 5

Over the next 3 months I was transitioned out of my job as a rehabilitation counselor into the role of a client or consumer of services. As you might imagine, this period of time in my life provided confusion and depression.

After being given my own rehabilitation counselor, I was scheduled to undergo another EEG. My counselor also arranged for me to undergo a neuro psyche evaluation. The results from the EEG confirmed that I had some brain damage. I then met with the neuro psychologist to complete the neuro psychological evaluation. Several weeks after I completed the evaluation, I received a detailed report of his findings. The long and the short of the findings showed that I was functioning at a level above my abilities. The second revelation that the neuro psychologist shared in his report raised a key question. He stated that I had somehow had been able to obtain both my undergraduate and graduate degrees despite my cognitive and psycho social deficits. The Dr. went on to say in his report that he attributed my success to sheer persistence and motivation.

When I said his report raised a key question, I was not making an understatement. How could I be able to obtain my undergraduate, graduate degree, as well as my national credentials as a certified rehabilitation counselor, but not be able to function at an undergraduate or master’s level in the work force. The conclusions drawn by the neuro psychologist seemed to be in direct contradiction with what I had been able to accomplish. His findings did not make any sense to me. I was both frustrated and bewildered after reading his report.

When I shared the results of the tests with my family they all thought the neuro psychologist did not know what he was talking about concerning my level of functioning. For the next 3 to 4 years I continued to work under the assumption that the neuro psychologist findings were rubbish. My parents and brother continued to concur with the assumption that the reason I was having difficulty maintaining employment was because I did not try hard enough. Nevertheless, I continued to get and lose jobs.

Even after I had been declared disabled, part of me continued to believe that my parents and my brother were right and the test results were bogus. What made matters worse for me was that I berated myself for my inability to maintain employment. My Dad also mercilessly criticized my inability to get along with people. His denial crushed my ability to love and accept who I was in the face of what I could not understand. My Dad wanted to believe that if he pushed me hard enough that I would straighten up.

Please read Part 6, Part 7 for context. Thank you.

Receive more articles like this one simply by clicking on Subscribe to Second Chance to Live by email.

Subscribe to Second Chance to Live, Bookmark and Share Second Chance to Live with your friends through a Feed Reader

Bookmark Second Chance to Live

Subscribe in a reader

All material presented on Second Chance to Live is copyright and cannot be copied, reproduced, or distributed in any way without the express, written consent of Craig J. Phillips, MRC, BA

Share this Article

  • Pinterest
  • Email
  • Print
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Pocket

Like this:

Like Loading...

Filed Under: Self-Acceptance after Brain Injury

Comments

  1. Harvey Myers says

    February 15, 2010 at 12:37 pm

    Just a quick message to state how much I relate to what you write. Part 5 here in particular. It’s always a struggle to find the right balance between indepenant research and the sometimes uneducated opinions of those we depend on for support. I relate very deeply to your struggle and find your articles very helpful in keeping myself centered in my struggle to achieve maximum recovery.

    I didn’t even know TBI was part and parcel of my struggle for 12 years becuase severe chronic pain was my focus. Until NeuroCranail Restructuring all but ended my pain and need for pain meds, i never gave it a thought, but it’s become a clear impediment to my recovery. There are great strides being made in understanding the nature of TBI/MTBI today, and there is a lot of misunderstanding and entrenched thinking and opinion about it as well. Articles like yours are the key to opening minds.

    Thank you for all you do
    Harvey Myers

    Loading...
    Reply
    • secondchancetolive says

      February 15, 2010 at 2:31 pm

      Hello Harvey,
      Thank you so very much for taking the time to write to me. I greatly appreciate your kindness. Thank you for what you shared. I have 2 more parts to the article that I will be publishing in the next several days Harvey. I agree with you concerning the mis-information, the minimization and marginalization. Sad but true my friend. I find this among many of the individuals that I interact with through Second Chance to Live and beyond. As you shared in your email, articles like mine open people’s minds.

      In my experience I have found that testimonials open people’s minds to be willing to understand and empathetic. With this in mind I have a favor to ask of you Harvey. Would you be so kind to write a testimony to be included on my Testimonial / Endorsement Page https://secondchancetolive.org/testimonialsendorsements/ Harvey. By doing so you would validate — in your experience — how Second Chance to Live has impacted your life and experience. By writing a testimonial you would encourage individuals to spend time reading articles from Second Chance to Live.

      Please feel free to visit my Testimonial / Endorsement Page to read what others have said over time. Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

      Have a great day and God bless both you and your family Harvey.

      Craig

      Loading...
      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Author, Advocate, Keynote Speaker

Official Second Chance to Live Logo

Determine to Create a Second Chance to Live One Skill and One Skill Set

Check out the New Layout of Second Chance to Live

10 Free eBooks Empower Recovery

Click on each of the eBook titles and a page will open. At the top of the page is a PDF to read the eBook. At the bottom of the page are download instructions to save the eBook to your device now.

putting-the-pieces-in-place-after-brain-injury

Living with a Brain Injury eBook Putting the Pieces in Place 60 Video Presentations

building-self-esteem-self-acceptance-after-brain-injury

Living with a brain injury and Building Self-Esteem and Self-Acceptance e Book

Stop-Being-Your-Enemy-Create-a-Life-for-Yourself

Living with a Brain Injury, What Helped Me to Stop Being my Enemy and Create a Life for Myself e Book

being-your-own-hero-through-overcoming-adversity

Being Your own Hero through Overcoming Adversity — Tools for Rebuilding Your Life e Book

making-sense-of-why and what-is-my-destiny

Living with a Brain Injury, Making Sense of Why and What is my Destiny? e Book

It-Is-never-too-late-to-create-hope

Create a Spark of Hope— Free Download

Finished eBook Cover Moving Forward Following a Brain Injury eBook

Moving Forward Following a Brain Injury e Book

Living with a Brain Injury and Learning to Take Care of Ourselves

Living with a Brain Injury and Learning to Take Care of Ourselves eBook

Having a Relationship with Myself and Other People after Brain Injury Video Presentations eBook

Having a Relationship with Myself and Other People after a Brain Injury Video Presentations eBook

Celebrating Success after a Brain Injury Video Presentations eBook

Follow Second Chance to Live

RSS Feed RSS - Posts

Archives

February 2010
M T W T F S S
« Jan   Mar »
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728

Translate Second Chance to Live

Albanian Arabic Bulgarian Catalan Chinese Simplified Chinese Traditional Croatian Czech Danish Dutch Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician German Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Korean Lativian Lithuanian Maltese Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swedish Thai Turkish Ukrainian Vietnamese

Copyright © 2019 · All rights reserved. · Sitemap

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
%d bloggers like this: