It happened again last night. I was at a party with some fellow writing and publishing friends. One wonderful person asked me to show my book to everyone, as she loved the cover so much.

It’s always interesting the responses I get when people see the title of my book.
“What made you write about traumatic brain injury?” is a pretty common one.
I always respond with “It’s a story about my journey through recovery.”

Last night the person who asked me about it then stated “well you’re talking just fine, so I assume you must be recovered, right?”

Let me tell you, it took every ounce of me to hold back the possessed demon inside me who wanted to fly through my body and chew her face off.

I get it. People are very uneducated and don’t understand TBI and concussions. In their minds, if we are walking and talking we must be fine. Recovered even. But it’s simply not true.

I took a deep breath, smiled, and told her that no, I was still recovering. 

The gentleman on the other side of me then asked how long recovery is expected to take and I explained how no two brain injuries are the same. That there’s no magic formula to help doctors guess how long it should or shouldn’t take our brains to heal. That most people never make a full and complete recovery, we just learn coping mechanisms to help us overcome the deficits.

We then went on to talk about the movie “Concussion” starring Will Smith. He then said to me that concussions usually have a full recovery. I looked at him and said “no, all concussions are brain injuries” – and he actually argued with me.

I read time and time again in my facebook group how survivors feel so isolated and alone. How their friends and family think they must be faking or exaggerating, that there’s no way they can still be dealing with their symptoms. It breaks my heart to hear these stories, I know first hand how it feels.

THIS. THIS is why I wrote my book. To try to help educated those who don’t understand (including many medical professionals) and to raise awareness on the severity of concussions and TBI.

Check out the podcast by Adventures In Brain Injury that I was recently interviewed in to hear more: http://bit.ly/1OiOeXs