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Understanding Traumatic Head Injury
7 min read
About Me: I am Derrick Smith. I live in Knoxville TN with my beautiful wife and two wonderful children. I am an amateur journalist hobbyist. I write for gaming blogs and other sites. I moderate a set of forums at a Transformer fansite called thetransformersnetwork.com. This will be my personal thought space of things I want to remember and make good articles to submit to various sites later. Sometimes my words offend but there is truth in those words. I will tell you what you need to hear not what you want to hear. No names will ever be published in my articles besides my own without permission.
August 30, 2016
Recently a friend and co-worker of mine got hurt. She wound up with three small cracks in her skull. At one point she was out like a light for three days.
At the time of this entry she is back in the hospital from complications from that 3 months later. I have surfed for a lot of research to try to see what I could have said to help her. There may have been nothing. If there was something, I needed to find it.
Witnessing first hand, I saw a kind, caring, and so very down to earth, just an all around genuine individual go to crazy, anxious, crying, intolerable maniac, with insane intensity to annoy to the point you just wanted to choke. Others said they found her to be more angry and high strung.
I knew this lady. She is always angry but this other was new. This was not the lady I knew. I had read some of this material I found in my research before. It never occurred to me that I needed to really read it. This was her to a T. I knew there was something wrong. She was so hard to deal with. I got angry at her instead of trying to understand why she was acting this way. I wound up ignoring the problem.
After reviewing various sources of information I saw that there was not much I could do to help except understand. I could have told her to go back to the Doctor. I don't think she would have listened. A TBI is something the person has to get well from themselves over time. All injuries need time to heal. I do understand what she was going through and why now. A key point I want to share.
Understanding Traumatic Brain Injury Highlights
A brain injury can change the way people feel or express emotions. An individual with TBI can have several types of emotional problems. TBI causes injury to the parts of the brain that control emotional expression. These can worsen with frustration and dissatisfaction with the changes in life brought on by the injury. A person with a TBI may have difficulty concentrating, remembering, expressing oneself or following conversations, all of which can lead to frustration and instensify emotional outbursts. Outbursts can also become worse if the person is feeling isolated, depressed or misunderstood.
August 30, 2016
Recently a friend and co-worker of mine got hurt. She wound up with three small cracks in her skull. At one point she was out like a light for three days.
At the time of this entry she is back in the hospital from complications from that 3 months later. I have surfed for a lot of research to try to see what I could have said to help her. There may have been nothing. If there was something, I needed to find it.
Witnessing first hand, I saw a kind, caring, and so very down to earth, just an all around genuine individual go to crazy, anxious, crying, intolerable maniac, with insane intensity to annoy to the point you just wanted to choke. Others said they found her to be more angry and high strung.
I knew this lady. She is always angry but this other was new. This was not the lady I knew. I had read some of this material I found in my research before. It never occurred to me that I needed to really read it. This was her to a T. I knew there was something wrong. She was so hard to deal with. I got angry at her instead of trying to understand why she was acting this way. I wound up ignoring the problem.
After reviewing various sources of information I saw that there was not much I could do to help except understand. I could have told her to go back to the Doctor. I don't think she would have listened. A TBI is something the person has to get well from themselves over time. All injuries need time to heal. I do understand what she was going through and why now. A key point I want to share.
Understanding Traumatic Brain Injury Highlights
A brain injury can change the way people feel or express emotions. An individual with TBI can have several types of emotional problems. TBI causes injury to the parts of the brain that control emotional expression. These can worsen with frustration and dissatisfaction with the changes in life brought on by the injury. A person with a TBI may have difficulty concentrating, remembering, expressing oneself or following conversations, all of which can lead to frustration and instensify emotional outbursts. Outbursts can also become worse if the person is feeling isolated, depressed or misunderstood.
Difficulty controlling emotions or “mood swings” is common with a TBI. Or they may seem to be “on an emotional roller coaster” in which they are happy one moment, sad the next and then angry. This is called emotional lability.
What causes this problem?
Mood swings and emotional lability are often caused by damage to the part of the brain that controls emotions and behavior.
Often there is no specific event that triggers a sudden emotional response. This may be confusing for family members who may think they accidently did something that upset the injured person.
In some cases the brain injury can cause sudden episodes of crying or laughing. These emotional expressions or outbursts may not have any relationship to the way the persons feels (in other words, they may cry
without feeling sad or laugh without feeling happy). Usually the person cannot control these expressions of emotion.
Fortunately, this situation often improves in the first few months after injury, and people often return to a more normal emotional balance and expression. Sometimes recovery may take longer. Reducing stress and decreasing irritating situations can remove some of the triggers for temper outbursts and irritability.
If you are having problems controlling your emotions, it is important to talk to a physician or psychologist to find out the cause and get help with treatment. Or if you know someone with a TBI that has not improved, talk to them about seeing their doctor.
Other points to consider:
Other points to consider:
- People with brain injury may feel anxious without exactly knowing why. Or they may worry and become anxious about making too many mistakes, or “fail-ing” at a task, or if they feel they are being criticized. Many situations can be harder to handle after brain injury and cause anxiety, such as being in crowds, being rushed, or adjusting to sudden changes in plan. Their anxiety may be related to a very stressful situation.
- Feeling sad is a normal response to the losses and changes a person faces after TBI. Feelings of sadness, frustration and loss are common after brain injury. These feelings often appear during the later stages of recovery, after the individual has become more aware of the long-term situation. These feelings become overwhelming and interfere with recovery. Symptoms of depression include feeling sad or worthless, changes in sleep or appetite, difficulty concentrating, withdrawing from others, loss of interest or pleasure in life, lethargy (feeling tired and sluggish), or thoughts of death or suicide.
- Because signs of depression are also symptoms of a brain injury itself, having these symptoms doesn’t necessarily mean the injured person is depressed. The problems are more likely to mean depression if they show up a few months after the injury rather than soon after it.
In conclusion the best thing you can do is give a person with a TBI your understanding. My friend and co-worker asked me for this several times when we would argue and until now I only pretended to do it. I hope in reading this it helps all of us gain a better understanding of what someone goes through and helps anyone out there facing the same situation.
What about my friend and co-worker? This moment she is still in the hospital with her odds improving. Her complications were a rare consequence of her injury. We are still waiting to see how it plays out. Which brings me to the most important thing I learned from this. If you stop a take a minute to listen and read between the lines when dealing with a person with a TBI there is a slight chance you may be able to prevent something worse later. If you know someone with a TBI that has not improved, talk to them about seeing their doctor. Even if they do not want to listen. There may be something else there that is causing them to act the way they are.
I can't imagine knowing what this was like for my friend but at least now I have a better understanding of her state of mind these last few months. I am praying for her speedy recovery.
Sources and other reading:
What about my friend and co-worker? This moment she is still in the hospital with her odds improving. Her complications were a rare consequence of her injury. We are still waiting to see how it plays out. Which brings me to the most important thing I learned from this. If you stop a take a minute to listen and read between the lines when dealing with a person with a TBI there is a slight chance you may be able to prevent something worse later. If you know someone with a TBI that has not improved, talk to them about seeing their doctor. Even if they do not want to listen. There may be something else there that is causing them to act the way they are.
I can't imagine knowing what this was like for my friend but at least now I have a better understanding of her state of mind these last few months. I am praying for her speedy recovery.
Sources and other reading:
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